Armenio Vieira, No Inferno (2001)

“What do you get when you cross Dante’s Inferno with Robinson Cruso?  Romeo and Juliet! No Inferno also interweaves poetry, stage drama and prose throughout.

“Armenio Vieira’s second novel, recently published in Portugal by Editorial Caminho, is an homage to the Western Canon. The novel contains one reference after another to classics in English, French, Spanish, and Russian, sometimes with helpful footnotes when Armenio thought it was necessary. The main character has a photographic memory and seems weighted down by the presence of all these words in his head. The words of others inhibit him from exercising his own creativity.”   —Naomi James Sutcliffe de Moraes, “On ‘No Inferno’ by Armenio Vieira, Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies (September 19, 2016)