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.

"His journey will open your mind to the possibilities of mindfulness" -- Polly Vernon Sunday Telegraph "Teach us to Sit Still made me laugh; it made me cry; and it made me seriously think about taking up Vispassana meditation" -- Will Self The Times "A searingly honest, viscerally vivid, darkly comic self-examination of the connections between writing personality and health. Once I started reading it, I didn't want to stop" -- David Lodge Guardian "This is a crazy, wince-inducing, uplifting book... Parks has done a service to the many people who would never look at a cheesy self-help book or try anything with a whiff of spirituality about it" Financial Times "A movingly honest book that is about a great deal more than breathing and meditation" -- Susan Hill The Lady