Hell and Back: Reflections On Writers and Writing From Dante to Rushdie

ISBN: 1559706104

Author: Parks, Tim

Condition: New

From Publishers Weekly British novelist and essayist Tim Parks (Destiny, Adultery and Other Diversions) meditates on literature, art, and translation in Hell and Back: Reflections of Writers and Writing from Dante to Rushdie. The book includes close readings of contemporary writers like Ian Buruma and the late W.G. Sebald, as well as high modernists like Joyce and Borges, and Henry Green. Parks is also a translator of Italian, and there are a number of sketches of Italian writers (Italo Svevo, Eugenio Montale) and a piece on fascist painter Mario Sironi Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Product Description Filled with humor and insight, a vast array of thought-provoking reflections on literature and the art of writing discusses literary masterpieces from such authors as Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Henry Green, Christina Stead, and Giovanni Verga. From Library Journal Published previously in England, this title collects 19 essays by novelist Parks (Tongues of Flame), many of which first appeared in the New York Review of Books. In intelligent and readable discourses, Parks writes on such authors as Dante, Jorge Luis Borges, Giacomo Leopardi, W.G. Sebald, and Salman Rushdie. Fairly academic in approach, the essays aim at understanding the author in question though not at popularizing the works. In one essay, Parks discusses how he was prompted to discuss translation when one of his students failed to recognize the Italian version of a novel she had read in English translation. In another, he asks whether creative writing doesn't by nature involve "rancour" with other writers, a sort of occupational hazard. This title is of interest primarily to academic libraries with strong literature collections. Nancy P. Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, NC Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. About the Author Tim Parks is the author of ten novels and three works of nonfiction: Italian Neighbors, An Italian Education, and Adultery and OtherDiversions, which was published by Arcade. He has been awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Betty Trask Award. His novel Europa was shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize. He lives in Verona, Italy.