Description: In his first work of literary criticism, acclaimed British novelist and award-winning translator, Tim Parks provides an accessible and enlightening analysis of the literary style of some of the 20th century's leading writers, as well as intriguing insights into the art of translation.

Parks, whose literary translations include writings by Italo Calvino and Fleur Jaeggy, rejects abstruse theoretical approaches to translation. Combining literary and linguistic approaches, he proceeds, through a series of interrelated chapters, to analyze Italian translations of the works of D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Barbara Pym, and Henry Green. Each chapter becomes an illuminating critical essay illustrating how the disjunction between original and translation is different for each author.

Parks concludes by examining six passages in English and Italian without stating at the outset which is the original language. Using excerpts of writings by Hemingway, Rosetta Loy, Antonio Tabucchi, Jack Kerouac, Alberto Moravia, and Roberto Calasso, Parks uncovers the extent to which any text or poetic is driven by the language in which it is written. This detailed and lively analysis will intrigue fans of literature in translation.

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