The news has been quietly making the rounds in European news outlets, following an initial report by the newspaper De Standaard that was picked up subsequently by several French publications: a new translation of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, written between 1304 and 1307, is causing controversy following the translator’s alterations.
Valeurs Actuelles reported that Lies Lavrijsen, who was tasked with the translation of the famous book by the Florentine poet, decided to remove any mention of Muhammad altogether, in a push to make the text more “more pleasant and accessible.” Speaking on the Belgian radio station Radio 1, she defended her exclusion, stating “a widest possible accessibility,” especially for “a younger audience,” as her justification. She added: “We knew that if we left this passage as it was written, we would have unnecessarily hurt a large part of the readers.” Lies Lavrijsen even reveals that the decision was made “in the tense period that saw the death of the teacher Samuel Paty in France.”
This censored passage is a key element of the work, when Dante enters hell and meets many characters through several circles during his journey, recalls Courrier international. Historical figures are locked up “because of their more or less serious sins.” According to Lavrijsen, Muhammad was being punished for having spread “his religion, which had allegedly sown discord on Earth,” and “of all the sinners who appear in Hell, he is described in the most atrocious and denigrating way.”
The response following her appearance on the program has been widely negative. Many listeners, including Muslims, called in to complain saying that the translation was both “denigrating to Muslims and to young readers,” inferring that they would not be able to put the work in its context. Several other translators weigh on the matter for De Standaard, dumbfounded that such a work would be edited, and asking for the description of the book to be revised to “adaptation” as opposed to “translation.” Moreover, according to Moroccan writer Adbelkader Benali, who has read several Arabic versions of Inferno, the passage was in fact left in place in all of them. The authors had added footnotes, however, to “explain” the work in its context.
It is not the first time that Dante’s opus faces calls to be “cancelled” for its depiction of Muhammad as one of the lowest forms of evil encountered in hell. In 2012, an Italian NGO called for the “offensive and discriminatory” classic to be removed from Italian classrooms, but was met with a backlash for this attempt to take the masterpiece out of the curriculum. And a couple of years before that, Yale University Press refrained from publishing a depiction of the Inferno’s scene featuring Muhammad by the famed French artist Gustave Doré among other images in a book specifically dedicated to the subject of illustrations of Muhammad.
Nor will it be the last. In this age of crazed censorship and political correctness, coupled with escalating acts of violence towards those who dare “slander” Muhammad — as we have tragically seen with Samuel Paty and the latest case in the UK — it seems to be only a matter of time until the thought police edit anything “problematic” out of our culture, according to their definition.
If our literary works, statues and recorded historical events are all being rewritten or written off completely, and — above all — without our freedom of expression, what will we have left?
tgusa says
Translation; the process of translating words or text from one language into another.
How in the world did she land this job when she doesn’t understand the definition of translation? She is so smart and cares so much about younger audiences that she falsifies classic literature. If you read in to it, it is about her fear not younger audiences.
Surrendering to muhammadans. Women in Denmark gained the right to vote on 5 June 1915. How long do you think they will keep their rights and freedoms with people such as this gaining ground? Muslims in her future can just edit out that right (and others) as if it never existed. Enjoy the suck, younger audiences, brought to you by the 21st century ship of fools.
PRCS says
“1, she defended her exclusion, stating “a widest possible accessibility,” especially for “a younger audience,” as her justification. She added: “We knew that if we left this passage as it was written, we would have unnecessarily hurt a large part of the readers.” Lies Lavrijsen even reveals that the decision was made “in the tense period that saw the death of the teacher Samuel Paty in France.”
*A brutally painful, gruesome death perpetrated as a result of the lies and propaganda concocted and propagated by the very people whose tender feelings she does not want to “hurt”.
gravenimage says
Yes–“saw the death” meaning that he was murdered by a Muslim for daring to defend freedom of speech, so this tool responds by censoring freedom of speech. *Ugh*.
mtman2 says
lol….YEAH her “hurt”….why bother pretending…!
gravenimage says
Muhammad removed from a new Dutch translation of Dante’s Inferno, to avoid ‘unnecessary offense’
…………………
Insane and disgusting censorship.
And thank you for this story, Noor bin Ladin.
mortimer says
DELIGHTED to see the name of Noor Bin Ladin. May your light shine, dear lady, to enlighten the world!
gravenimage says
+1
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)
“Canto XXVIII
Bolgia 9 – Sowers of Discord: In the Ninth Bolgia, the Sowers of Discord are hacked and mutilated for all eternity by a large demon wielding a bloody sword; their bodies are divided as, in life, their sin was to tear apart what God had intended to be united;[96] these are the sinners who are “ready to rip up the whole fabric of society to gratify a sectional egotism”.[97] The souls must drag their ruined bodies around the ditch, their wounds healing in the course of the circuit, only to have the demon tear them apart anew. These are divided into three categories: (i) religious schism and discord, (ii) civil strife and political discord, and (iii) family disunion, or discord between kinsmen. Chief among the first category is Muhammad, the founder of Islam: his body is ripped from groin to chin, with his entrails hanging out. Dante apparently saw Muhammad as causing a schism within Christianity when he and his followers splintered off.[97][98] Dante also condemns Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali, for schism between Sunni and Shiite: his face is cleft from top to bottom. Muhammad tells Dante to warn the schismatic and heretic Fra Dolcino.”
gravenimage says
Here is Gustave Dore’s famous illustration:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/70/9b/12/709b12fe4e622858881eff38ae772b4c.jpg
Naildriver says
Thank you, I was going to google it.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Naildriver. Done in more honest times.
Fred van de Bunt says
I have not read the book, but it appears to be a translation of the first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, called “Inferno”, or Hell, which the writer visits. During his visit in Hell he meets all kinds of people, like some Pope’s, homosexuals, Judas, the murderers of Julius Caesar and Muhammed. The last name was anonymized. The reason why:
”…Not to be unnecessary hurtful toward a part of the readers that are such a large part of Flemish and Dutch society.”
https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/ophef-om-schrappen-mohammed-in-nieuwe-vertaling-van-literair-meesterwerk-onnodig-kwetsend~a7b8402b/
Clear, if you “hurt the feelings” of Muslims, one soon learns the consequences are very different from hurting the feelings of normal people, like we have learned with Charlie Hebdo and Salma Rushdie for instance.
And as for being “a large part of society”, due to forced EU regulated mass imports of overly touchy people, one should read the Dutch 12 March 2021 election results of the two largest Dutch municipalities in the Netherlands, being Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Apart from mostly secular parties, there are the Muslim and Christian parties people voted for:
In Amsterdam Muslim parties got 8% of the votes and Christian parties only 4%.
In Rotterdam Muslim parties got 10% of the votes and Christian parties only 7%.
Fred van de Bunt says
Sorry, 12 March 2021 election result should be 17 March 2021 election results.
gravenimage says
Scary stuff, Fred. And this is only apt to become worse.
PRCS says
Two of my favorite Islamocluess politicians:
1. HER when she stated–on Twitter–, “Let’s be clear: Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”
2. Philidelphia’s idiot Mayor Kenny, who–immediately after his Police Chief stated that the perpetrator of that 2016 crime had said it was carried out in the name of Islam and that police are enforcing laws that are contrary to the teachings of Islam–then declared @4:22 that it had nothing to do with Islam.
https://www.phillyvoice.com/kenney-quotes-about-islam-role-police-shooting-draws-backlash/
Andrew Blackadder says
muslims in general seem to have very thin skins as anything makes them angry, which tells me they follow a rather angry faith.
So, if I tell a muslim fellow that I think his religion is very violent and he then turns around and attacks me very violently for saying this , then by doing so, is he being a good muslim…
James Lincoln says
Looks like Lies Lavrijsen is being proactively sharia compliant…
Ken Johnson says
Censoring literature for a population not even likely to read it. And how aout he other 80 percent or so who should be exposed to the original.. Bending over for Islam. Where is the resistance to Islam going to come from, not people like her.
Kriemhild says
The depiction of Mohammed in Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in the Inferno is exactly right — this is what people should know about him — a perverse and bloody cruel monster, a mass-murdering paedophile who has brainwashed millions of naive and stupid people who believe the garbage he preached. There was no Allah — Allah was only a myth used to legitimize Mohammed’s insanity. Islam is a bogus cult, masquerading as a religion, and has much in common with the Mafia and the Nazis. Islam can be regarded as an international criminal conspiracy. It could be classified as a CONTAGIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS SIMILAR TO RABIES. Mohammed was afflicted by the disease acromegaly, which is caused by excessive production of a growth hormone, resulting in large bones, cold and fleshy hands and feet, and coarse facial features such as enlarged lips, nose ans tongue. It causes impotence, while it increases libido. None of Mohammed’s beautiful, young and healthy wives ever had a child, not even Aisha, his favorite, whom he married when she was six, waiting until she was nine to consument the marriage (rape her). Islam considers girls of nine to be mature and ready for wedlock. Because he was so ugly, no picture was ever made of Mohammed. When he had to meet foreign dignitaries or ambassadors, he would put a veil over his face. The Koran incites Muslims to kill all non-Muslims on nearly every page.
Islam is incompatible with democracy, with Christianity, with sane thinking about human relations. It erodes the conscience. Why do so many people try to defend this madness?
OTTER says
Another foolish white woman. Control your women or die, white man.
gravenimage says
OTTER has done this many times–pretended that dhimmitude and appeasement of Islam is only dine by white women. For one thing, the idea that Lies Lavrijsen acted completely on her own is absurd–what about her editors and publisher?
And his “solution” is to strip all women of the vote, prevent them from getting an education, and force them to breed. Sounds a lot like Islam–he has never said why he doesn’t just convert now.
IanB says
Bend over for Islam and you are sure to get shafted.
David says
Where the heck did they think Mohammed ended up? He went to Hell exactly as Dante wrote. They, the people knew way back then what a miserable religion Islam was.
Hidding the “truth” so as not to offend is a crime in itself.
Siddi Nasrani says
Heard this quote many years ago, ” Would you like to hear the sweetest lie ?
Or the bitter truth ?