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Alastair McEwen In 1976 I came to Italy hitchhiking with a friend. He left, I stayed. In 1977 I went home and finished my degree, and I was back in Milan by the following year. The next almost ten years were spent teaching English literature and history in a private school, which is also where I met my future wife, but that’s her story. At the ripe old age of 36 I discovered translation and quit teaching. To date, I have published over 60 book-length translations (novels and non-fiction), umpteen essays, articles, and poems, plus several feature film scripts and operatic librettos. I have worked with some of Italy’s finest living writers: Baricco, Busi, Eco, Jaeggy, Tabucchi, and Veronesi, just to name a few. Not a bad score for a chap whose headmaster said, on expelling the miscreant, “You, boy, have not spent three consecutive days at school in four years. You will never get anywhere in life.” He was probably right, in a way, but at least I got as far as Italy. Oh yes, I also write (very occasional) newspaper and magazine articles and, as tradition demands, I have a novel gathering dust somewhere or other. Meglio così. telephone: +39 02 33607021 Postal address: Via Pietro Giannone 6, 20154 Milano
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I
was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in July 1950. At least, so I’m
told. As a young man I did just about every kind of job imaginable:
factory hand, fisherman, pipeline labourer, farmhand, quarryman, and
so on.