Dante’s Hell – why a medieval fantasy still sizzles!

The East Midlands Salon returns with a discussion of the enduring legacy of Dante’s Inferno.

“Seven-hundred years on, the first part of the Divine Comedy continues to express a very human sense of justice…

The characters in the first part of the Divine Comedy have…made a lasting impression on generations of readers, along with the sheer poetry of the Comedy, even in translation from Dante’s native Florentine dialect. Perhaps that’s because, as well as writing in the everyday vernacular rather than the prestige language of Latin, Dante peopled the afterlife with many of his own contemporaries, as well as more celebrated figures from history and mythology. The result is that all are portrayed as realistic individuals, in graphic and often gory detail.”

Our speaker, Dolan Cummings, is the author of Gehenna: a novel of Hell and Earth (Lockdown Press, 2020) in which he replaces the Florentines condemned to hell with Glaswegians.

Dolan will be in conversation with one of our Salon organisers, Vanessa Pupavac, to start our discussion.

Date, Time and Venue: Thursday 11 November 2021 at 7 PM in the Parlour of The Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets £3 from Eventbrite (or register here on Facebook and make a donation on the door).

A Battle of Ideas Festival Satellite event

(Illustration: Dante et Virgile aux enfers by Delacroix (1822) Public Domain)

That Existential Leap: a crime story

At the nest East Midlands Salon, Dolan Cummings will be ‘in conversation’ with Dennis Hayes about his new crime novel That Existential Leap. Purchase a copy from Amazon UK.

“Part bildungsroman and part psychological thriller, That Existential Leap is a novel of ideas about the struggle for self-realisation and belonging in the postmodern West. Claudette Dasgupta is a thoughtful but unremarkable American teenager unenthusiastic about the prospect of college and a conventional life. When she meets the heroically mysterious Siegfried at the New York Public Library, she barely hesitates to throw in her lot with him, but soon finds an unscripted life is scarier, and harder, than she could have imagined. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Siegfried’s home town Glasgow, unconventional police detective Alexander investigates his disappearance. Alexander is soon caught up in still more unworldly affairs as his work spirals out of control and his personal life unravels. As the two stories wrap around one another, encompassing the worlds of crime and gangsterism, the law and police work, music and the supernatural, Dolan Cummings’ novel explores the terrifying uncertainty at the core of all human relationships.”

Date, Time and Venue: Thursday 21 June at & PM in The Brunswick Inn, Derby. Tickets are available on Eventbrite.

About Dolan

Dolan Cummings works as a freelance copywriter and speechwriter. He is originally from Glasgow and now lives in London. He is an Associate Fellow of the Academy of Ideas and one of the organisers of its annual Battle of Ideas festival in London. He has edited two collections of essays: The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual (Routledge 2005) and Debating Humanism (Imprint Academic 2006). That Existential Leap: a crime story (Zero Books 2017) is his first novel. His personal website can be found at dolancummings.com.