Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since. He is the author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including Europa, Cleaver, A Season with Verona and Teach Us to Sit Still. He has won the Somerset Maugham, Betty Trask and Llewellyn Rhys awards, and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lectures on literary translation in Milan, writes for publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, and his many translations from the Italian include works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi and Machiavelli.

"An impressively cogent book... For a writer so fascinated by conflict, Parks is a model of critical reason and clarity" New Statesman "Tim Parks is a master of the essay... Park's polymath pursuits here focus primarily - and bravely - on heavyweight novelists and on almost every historical, political and cultural aspect of his adoptive homeland, Italy" Independent "Always erudite but never forbidding, bringing an unashamedly humanist consciousness to the lives and works under consideration... Thought-provoking and often funny" Observer "His writing is muscular but there is not street-bawling for the sake of it... He is much subtler, more perceptive than that" Guardian "Parks proves sharp in both defence and attack in these essays" Financial Times