A Tent in This World - Hardcover

Weaver, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0929701585 ISBN 13: 9780929701585

Publisher: McPherson, 1999

Synopsis

A novella originally published in an Italian periodical in 1950 offers a fictional account of the author's experiences staying with an Italian family in Naples for several weeks in 1947.

About this title

Review:

Best known as the translator for such modern Italian masters as Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino, William Weaver started out his literary life as a writer. A Tent in this World was written decades ago and first published in Italy in 1950. Though presented as a novel, the first indication that this fictionalized journal may in fact be more memoir than fiction lies in the name Weaver shares with his main character, Bill. Set in 1947, the book follows its 24-year-old narrator as he journeys back to Naples where, some years earlier, he had worked as a volunteer ambulance driver during the war. What he finds is a kind of chaotic pentimento in which his earlier memories of the places and people he knew bleed through the very different circumstances he sees today. Memory and reality clash most distressingly when he visits the Fabbri family, to whom he'd once been close. But now his friend Luigi seems completely different from the dedicated writer he remembers, while the mores and morals of Italian life conflict with his own judgements and values. Language problems, culture shock, and the dismantling of sentimental memories all contribute to Bill's discomfort--until at last he takes off on a journey through Naples and the surrounding countryside and discovers that he, too, has changed. Though we must all be grateful to the incredible skill and artistry that William Weaver has brought to his translations over the years, A Tent in this World makes one wish that this solitary attempt at translating his own heart and mind had not been his last. --Margaret Prior

About the Author:

Virginian, born 1923. After leaving Princeton in his sophomore year to join the American Field Service, William Weaver drove an ambulance with the British army, first in Africa and then in Italy, initiating his long fascination with that country. After finally graduating from Princeton in 1946, he soon returned to Italy and spent most of the next half-century there, writing about Italian music and Italian places, and translating many of the most important modern Italians, from Pirandello to Morante, Gadda, Calvino, and Umberto Eco. His translations have received many prizes, including the National Book Award, the Galantiere Prize, the PEN translation prize twice, and on three occasions the John Florio Prize. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, William Weaver now lives at Bard College, where he teaches literature and writing.

About this edition

• Publisher: McPherson
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0929701585
• ISBN 13: 9780929701585
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 157