Purgatorio Re-placed

Purgatorio Re-placed is a re-write of Dante’s Purgatorio, the second book of his Divine Comedy. Using Dorothy Sayers’ translation as a guide, Alex Selenitsch keeps Dante’s overall and detail structure of 33 Cantos or chapters but rewrites the epic in modern Australian English. Dante’s medieval list of sins, his characters and events are replaced with Australian ones, while the mountain is flattened out to encompass the continent of Australia. Over this geography, the new poem deals with issues of art and creativity, and the development of a poetic voice.

Praise for Purgatorio Re-placed

‘With Purgatorio Re-placed Alex Selenitsch has produced a Dante for out times, as told through the looking glass of Australian history. It is a poetic tour de force, a re-imagining and recasting of our past for the 21st century.’

— Des Cowley

‘Alex Selenitsch has long been recognised for his startling originality, and Purgatorio Re-placed (a luminous resetting of Dante’s ‘cosmic waiting room’ classic) couldn’t be more relevant to today’s environmentally degraded and post-bushfire Australia: certainly, its penetrating scrutiny, always tempered by a resonant note of hope, is well worth the wait!’

— John Jenkins

‘A rich, poetic and idiosyncratic journey with Dante around Australia and through conversations with a roll call of our recently lost artists – an autobiographical and reflective feast.’

— Dr. Greg Missingham, University of Melbourne