Zaratha-s Epistolary

Frederik Oba, an Albanian intellectual, a Latinist who dreams of a modern, democratic Albania, is arrested and convicted for his political views and imprisoned on an isolated island off the Adriatic coast. While there among others denied freedom and facing an abyss of violence, he decides to translate the Inferno, the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. In his letters to his wife, he paints a heart-wrenching picture of the life as a political prisoner and speaks of his passion in translating Hell. It takes his wife a year to get permission to visit him, but the regimes' henchmen have been there first. What happened to Dante's translator?

Featured in the 23 July 2019 New Zealand newsletter.
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