Italian Neighbors by Tim Parks

Italian Neighbors by Tim Parks

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year: A deliciously entertaining account of expatriate life in a small village just outside Verona, Italy.

Tim Parks is anything but a gentleman in Verona. So after ten years of living with his Italian wife, Rita, in a typical provincial Italian neighborhood, the novelist found that he had inadvertently collected a gallery full of splendid characters. In this wittily observed account, Parks introduces readers to his home town, with a statue of the Virgin at one end of the street, a derelict bottle factory at the other, and a wealth of exotic flora and fauna in between.

Via Colombare, the village's main street, offers an exemplary hodgepodge of all that is new and old in the bel paese, a point of collision between invading suburbia and diehard peasant tradition. It is a world of creeping vines, stuccoed walls, shotguns, security cameras, hypochondria, and expensive sports cars. More than a mere travelogue, Italian Neighbors is a vivid portrait of the real Italy and a compelling story of how even the most foreign people and places gradually assume the familiarity of home.

"One of the most delightful travelogues imaginable . . . so vivid, so packed with delectable details." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

Tim Parks was born in Manchester and studied at Cambridge and Harvard Universities. He presently runs a post-graduate course in translation at IULM university, Milan. He has written thirteen novels, the most recent being Cleaver, and three best selling accounts of life in provincial Italy as well as two collections of literary essays, Hell and Back and The Fighter. He is also the translator of Antonio Tabucchi, Italo Calvino, Alberto Moravia and Roberto Calasso and has twice won the prestigious John Florio prize and the Italo Calvino award for literary translation from Italian.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780802140340
ISBN 10	0802140343
Title	Italian Neighbors
Author	Tim Parks
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
Year published	2003-10-07
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.