Light-footed and eloquent, the Büchner Prize winner Sibylle Lewitscharoff walks with us through hell and heaven. The main characters in her novel include the greatest comedy of world literature, the salvation of 34 Dante scholars, and a touching narrator who is so concerned with staying grounded that the word "miracle" barely escapes his lips. The setting is magnificent, and the atmosphere is cheerful: renowned Dante scholars from all over the world gather in the venerable hall of the Knights of Malta on the Roman Aventine, overlooking St. Peter's Basilica. At the center is the Divine Comedy, Dante's realism-infused insight into the afterlife. One of the eager debaters is Gottlieb Elsheimer, a Romanist from Frankfurt, who considers himself more of a candidate for purgatory than for paradise. Despite his passion for the subject of research, he seems to struggle with it.