In The Inferno, the first volume of Dante Alighieri's classic The Divine Comedy, Dante's literary hero Virgil guides him through Hell, showing him the inhabitants of its nine circles and the divine justice meted out to them. Originally written in colloquial Italian, The Inferno was intended for the common reader. Ciaran Carson continues this tradition with sparkling rhymes that maintain the wit, anger, and irreverent vigor of Dante's creation. Carson's The Inferno deserves comparison with Seamus Heaney's Beowulf and Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid. Ciaran Carson has been awarded the Irish Times Literature Prize and the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize.