Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

about the authors & works

Catherine McNamara Catherine McNamara is a good example of today’s European. Now an Italian citizen and living in Italy, she is originally from Sydney, Australia, spent the bulk of her adult life in Europe, and considers herself a European adoptee. Moving first to Paris as a student, she worked as an au pair for a theatrical family, taught English in Milan, then moved to pre-war Somalia and worked in an embassy. She has since lived in Brussels, in northern Italy, and nine years in Ghana, where she co-ran a bar and traditional art gallery.  Italian is her day-to-day language, although she writes in English. Her collection Pelt and Other Stories was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2014 and semi-finalist in the Hudson Prize 2011. Her story “Magaly Park” was nominated for a Pushcart prize last year, and she has recently been shortlisted for the Hilary Mantel/KWS Short Story Competition, the Short Fiction International Short Story Competition, the Labello Press Short Story Competition and the Love on the Road Short Story Competition. She has work forthcoming or published in Ambit, Structo, Wasafiri, Short Fiction, A Tale of Two Cities and Two Thirds North (Stockholm University). Her debut novel was published in 2012. ‘Astragal’ is set in the Italian Dolomites.

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