Inferno

In a market crowded with translations of Dante’s poetic masterpiece, Michael Palma sets himself apart. He has rendered Inferno into contemporary American English while maintaining Dante’s original triple-rhyme scheme. Unlike every known translator before him, Palma re-creates Inferno in all its dimensions, without emphasizing some aspects over others. The result is a translation that can be appreciated for its literal faithfulness and beautiful poetic form.

Palma is a poet who often uses traditional forms, and he is a translator who works to preserve the poetic form of the original. In undertaking a triple-rhyme translation of Inferno, Palma defies the conventional wisdom of literary commentators, who have long argued that it cannot be done.

The translation is accompanied by facing-page Italian and by explanatory notes.