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BOOKS INTERVIEW: A fresh trip round the circle lines Dante Alighieri may have died in 1321, but two new translations of the Inferno show that he's still thriving as a poet. So Bill Greenwell asked him for the hot news from Hell

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From: The Independent - London
Date: 20021221
Author:Bill Greenwell

I ARRANGE to meet Dante Alighieri at a Starbuck's on the Strand. Unfortunately, my directions aren't very precise, and he gets lost on the Circle Line. And then it took him ages to find the right Starbuck's. The experience reminds him of a trench he was once in with Virgil: people going up and down escalators, and then forced to drink sickly cappuccino.

"I once met T S Eliot near here," he admits. "I didn't like the way his poems sounded:/ too drab, too much misogyny, too drear,/ and most of his conclusions were unfounded./"

He takes his laurel leaves off, and hangs them on the back of his ...

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