Avia

by Nathaniel Tarn

Avia is a book-length epic poem that takes for its subject matter the war in the air in World War Two. The verse narratives are stories told by combat pilots from all the major battle theatres, but are related to Charles Lindbergh in a dream as he returns to the United States following his 1927 transatlantic flight. Voices from his future and from our past.

303 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2008

About the author

Nathaniel Tarn is an American poet, essayist, anthropologist, and translator.

Tarn was educated at Clifton College, UK and graduated in history and English from King's College, Cambridge. He returned to Paris and, after some journalism and radio work, discovered anthropology at the Musée de l’Homme, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes and the Collège de France. A Fulbright a grant took him to Yale and the University of Chicago where Robert Redfield sent him to Guatemala for his doctoral fieldwork (1951-2) at the University of Chicago. He completed this work as a graduate student at the London School of Economics (1953-8).

Tarn was a professor at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

He emigrated to the United States in 1970 and taught at American universities.