Education
He studied at Ampleforth College, Oxford University, and the Royal College of Artist
He studied at Ampleforth College, Oxford University, and the Royal College of Artist
Originally a painter, he worked as director of the British Institute in Naples before the Second World War, and in Seville after the war. He worked in British intelligence during wartime. He later headed Oxford University Press" initiative to bring out Italian literary classics in translation.
He scored his biggest success with Lampedusa"s The Leopard, a translation that is still in print.
He was also one of the first translators to introduce Italo Calvino to Anglophone readers. He also wrote a biography of Alessandro Manzoni.
According to Robin Healey"s Twentieth-century Italian Literature in English Translation, Colquhoun was one of the top 10 translators of Italian literature of the last 70 years, alongside Patrick Creagh, Angus Davidson, Frances Frenaye, Stuart Hood, Eric Mosbacher, Isabel Quigly, Raymond Rosenthal, Bernard Wall and William Weaver. Italo Svevo - A.