Double Book Launch: More Favourable Waters | Quantum of Dant

You are warmly invited to join us to celebrate the launch of 'More Favourable Waters: Aotearoa poets respond to Dante’s Purgatory' edited by Marco Sonzogni & Timothy Smith (The Cuba Press) and 'Quantum of Dante' by Marco Sonzogni (Beatnik Books). All welcome.

About the books:

More Favourable Waters is an anthology of contemporary poets from Aotearoa New Zealand commemorating one of the world’s great poets, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), 700 years after his death.

Each of the 33 poets has written a poem of 33 lines inspired by and including a short passage from one of the 33 cantos of Dante’s Purgatory, the second part of his epic The Divine Comedy.

Airini Beautrais
Marisa Cappetta
Kay McKenzie Cooke
Mary Cresswell
Majella Cullinane
Sam Duckor-Jones
Nicola Easthope
David Eggleton
Michael Fitzsimons
Janis Freegard
Anahera Gildea
Michael Harlow Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
Anna Jackson
Andrew Johnston
Tim Jones
Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod
Hugh Lauder
Vana Manasiadis
Mary McCallum
Elizabeth Morton
Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall
Vincent O’Sullivan
Robin Peace
Helen Rickerby
Reihana Robinson
Robert Sullivan
Steven Toussaint
Jamie Trower
Tim Upperton
Sophie van Waardenberg
Bryan Walpert
Sue Wootton

Quantum of Dante
'In order to transform a work into a cult object, you must be able to take it to pieces, disassemble it, and unhinge it in such a way that only parts of it are remembered, regardless of their original relationship with the whole'. — Umberto Eco

On the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, Quantum of Dante re-presents one of the capstones of world literature - Dante’s Divine Comedy - as an opportunity for new play and celebration between form and content, language and image, text and book. Destined to become an instant cult objet d’art, this limited-edition volume openly winks to readers of English - even as it renders Dante’s classic in its original Italian.

Quantum of Dante positions itself in a trivial and serious dialogue with the master’s medieval masterpiece that will surprise and amuse. A curio for the curious, a status symbol for the scholarly - and unforgettable for everyone. One might call it brilliant.

Marco Sonzogni is a widely published and award-winning scholar, literary translator, poet and editor. He works at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

From his studio in Auckland, Ant Sang has won awards for his graphic novels and character designs. His comics have been published in the US, UK, Canada, France, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.
The ant that Marco sees embedded in Dante’s name and verse has opened up a world of ants and antipodean routes! — Diego Marani

What a fantastic place to find ants. This Dante book is incredibly pleasant! — Marco Dorigo

Supported by Embassy of Italy Wellington, Conservatorio Di Como and Istituto Italiano Di Cultura Sydney.