The System Of Dante's Hell: A Novel

(Paperback)

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The System Of Dante's Hell, originally published in 1965, is a remarkable narrative of childhood and youth, structured on the themes of Dante's Inferno: violence, incompetance, fraud and treachery. With a poet's skill Baraka creates the atmosphere of hell, and with dramatic power he reconstructs the brutality of the black slums of Newark, a small Southern town and New York City. The episodes contained within the novel represent both states of mind and states of the soul. The resultant work is lyrical, fragmentary and elusive.

Author Bio

Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1934-2014) was the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He was named poet laureate of New Jersey by the New Jersey Commission for the Humanities, from 2002-2004. His short story collection Tales of the Out & the Gone (Akashic Books) was a New York Times Editors' Choice and won a 2008 PEN/Beyond Margins Award. He is also the author of Home: Social Essays, Black Music, and Tales, among other works.