Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2001
Source Publication
Write Magazine. (Spring 2001), p. 32-36.
Abstract
While Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence in 2000, the author travelled to Milan to interview British-Italian author Tim Parks about his work to date on the occasion of publication of his (then) most recent novel, Destiny. Drawing on the interview, Parks’ own musings on his work on his website, and on a dozen of Parks’ published works, the author explores themes of writing as seduction, the tension between cultural distance and embeddedness as foundations of great writing, the dual centrality of language as style and language as being (as most clearly revealed in the process and art of translation), and the equipoise between intuitive virtuosity of the prose on display in Destiny and its carefully crafted, intricate architectonics. Biographical vignettes of Parks’ life in Northern Italy at the turn of the millennium weave in and out of the discussion alongside travelogue observations of a day in Milan with Parks. Besides Destiny, the author references Parks’ novels, Tongues of Flame, Loving Roger, Goodness, Cara Massimina, Mimi’s Ghost, and the Booker-shortlisted Europa; the non-fiction works, Translating Style, Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education, and Adultery & Other Diversions, are also discussed.
Repository Citation
Scott, Craig M., "Tim Parks in Transatlantic Translation" (2001). Articles & Book Chapters. 1979.
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/scholarly_works/1979
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.