Novelist, essayist, translator and teacher, Tim Parks has lived and worked in Italy since 1981. His writings generally tackle the conundrum of culture and individuality, his novel Europa being shortlisted for the Booker Prize while his accounts of Italian life (Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education) have become well-established favourites. His essays, on such wide-ranging subjects as football, hypertexts and mental health, appear regularly in the New York and London Reviews. His most recent work Teach Us to Sit Still, a sceptic’s guide to health and healing was described by David Lodge as: “A searingly honest, viscerally vivid, darkly comic self-examination of the connections between writing, personality and health.”