Peter Turton

Peter Turton was born in Wakefield, England, in 1941 to a working-class family. He left home at 17, later on winning a scholarship to Cambridge University to study modern languages. After one year he left for Spain, where he spent three years working in a language school. He then returned to Cambridge to resume his studies. After graduation he went back to Spain, working in a blast furnace, then as a technical translator and then for an engineering firm. Receiving a Commonwealth Scholarship, he spent three years in Canada doing a doctorate in Spanish literature. He spent 1970–71 in Cuba at the University of Havana, leaving to teach Hispanic Studies in Canada. Back in England, he worked at the Polytechnic (subsequently University) of North London for 21 years. Taking early retirement from this institution, he taught for a year at Northern Arizona University, leaving afterwards for Brazil, where he spent some 15 years, 11 of them teaching at a university in the state of Bahia. Presently he lives in London.