Patrick Creagh
John Patrick Brasier-Creagh, best known as Patrick Creagh, was a British poet and translator.
Life
Patrick Creagh was educated at Wellington College and Brasenose College, Oxford. He and his first wife, Lola Segre, lived in Rome until her sudden death in 1960.
Creagh returned to London, losing all his books in transit, but returned to Italy in the late 1960s, travelling with Derek Raymond in an army truck. His second wife Ursula Barr was the ex-wife of Al Alvarez and a granddaughter of D. H. Lawrence's wife. After she inherited the rights to Lady Chatterley's Lover, the pair were able to buy an old farmhouse called Spanda north of Siena.
Creagh met the composer John Eaton while teaching at Princeton University, and wrote several libretti for him.
In the early 1980s Creagh and Barr separated, and Creagh subsequently lived with his partner Susan Rose, née James, at Panzano in Chianti.
Works
Poetry
Row of Pharaohs, Heinemann, 1962A Picture of Tristan: Imitations of Tristan Corbière, 1965.Dragon Jack-Knifed, 1966To Abel and others, 1970The lament of the border-guard, 1980
Translations
Design as art by Bruno Munari, 1970Selected poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti, 1971Architecture as environment by Flavio Conti, 1978Splendor of the gods by Flavio Giovanni Conti, 1978The Moral Essays or Moral Tales by Giacomo Leopardi, 1983 Danube by Claudio Magris, 1989: winner of the John Florio Prize 1990Blind Argus by Gesualdo Bufalino, 1989: winner of the John Florio Prize 1990Beautiful Antonio by Vitaliano Brancati, 1993The keeper of ruins and other inventions by Gesualdo Bufalino, 1994Pereira declares: a testimony by Antonio Tabucchi, 1995The chimera by Sebastiano Vassalli, 1995The lament of the linnet by Anna Maria OrteseThe missing head of Damasceno Monteiro by Antonio Tabucchi, 1999Tommaso and the blind photographer by Gesualdo Bufalino, 2000The Advocate by Marcello Fois, 2001Involuntary witness by Gianrico Carofiglio, 2005Memory of the Abyss by Marcello Fois 2012: winner of the John Florio Prize 2014