PURGATORY (eBook)

Born in 1934, Alasdair Gray graduated in design and mural painting from the Glasgow School of Art. Since 1981, when Lanark was published by Canongate, he authored, designed and illustrated seven novels, several books of short stories, a collection of his stage, radio and TV plays and a book of his visual art, A Life in Pictures. In November 2019, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Saltire Society. He died in December 2019, aged eighty-five.

PRAISE FOR HELL: Alasdair Gray has cast a spell over Dante's Hell, creating (and decorating) a verse translation that is modern, lyrical, yet faithful to the original

The best Scottish novelist since Sir Walter Scott

One of the most gifted writers to have put pen to paper in the English language

Slick, easy to read . . . Gray is rather good at catching the colloquial nature of the poem . . . An excellent primer to Dante . . . In terms of verve, vim and vigour Gray has succeeded here. It is, if such a thing can be, an "easy" Dante, and one that does capture the comedy as well as the pathos and anguish of the poem

PRAISE FOR ALASDAIR GRAY: A necessary genius

Gray is a true original, a twentieth century William Blake

Powerfully conveys the appalling nature of a vision which has terrified and enthralled Western men and women down the centuries

No other translator has made the narratives so clear or strong, and the distinctive power of the work lies in the clarity of the storytelling . . . This Hell is a magnificent feat of reimagining of one of the greatest of all human creations

Alasdair Gray is one of the most important living writers in English

A great writer, perhaps the greatest writer living in Britain today