An Italian Education - Hardcover

Tim Parks

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0436202158 ISBN 13: 9780436202155

Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, 1996

Synopsis

After living in Italy for ten years and having married into an Italian family, novelist Tim Parks describes his experiences of the country and its people. How does an Italian become Italian? Focusing on his own children, Parks builds a picture of contemporary family life.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Parks is the author of seven novels: Loving Roger, Home Thoughts, Tongues of Flame, Family Planning, Goodness, Juggling the Stars, and Shear. He has won international acclaim for his work, including the Somerset Maugham, John Llewellyn Rhys, and Betty Trask awards. Born in Manchester, England, he studied English literature at Cambridge University and Harvard. In addition to his own award-winning books, Parks has translated the works of Moravia, Calvino, and Calasso. He lives just outside Verona, Italy, where he teaches English at the University Of Verona.

From Booklist

When expatriate novelist Parks wrote about living in Italy in Italian Neighbors (1992), he focused on the process of acclimation and his often tricky relationships with adults. Now, in another charming and fluidly composed volume of keen observations, amusing anecdotes, and creative musings, he considers the "world of children," especially of his own inventively bilingual son and daughter, who, Parks must concede, will grow up thoroughly Italian in spite of being half English. Childhood in Italy is a fecund topic for Parks, a perfect conduit for analyzing all the quirks of Italian society. As Parks attempts to define what exactly makes Italians Italian, he discusses everything from bureaucracy to lullabies, attitudes toward pregnancy and large families, food preferences, the worship of conformity, the "mama mystique," typical vacations, adultery, school events, and textbooks. Thus the concept of "Italian education" works on two levels. While Parks is describing how Italians teach each other to be Italian, he's also teaching us outsiders all about their richly textured culture. This is an intelligent and sunny book, glimmering with all the contradictions and joys of daily life. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0436202158
• ISBN 13: 9780436202155
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320