The biggest influence was a novel my father gave me to read at the age of about 13, U.S.A. by John Dos Passos. At that age, it just got me. You can trace back everything I do to that novel because it's all about the relationship between grand history and individual experience. And it's a collage with quotes from newsreels, cinema, and newspapers-a collage of history. That's where I get it all from.

The most significant novel yet about Korea. For the first time, a Korean author has fused both classical and contemporary indigenous poetry with the skill and breadth of vision expected of an international writer

This book goes to the heart of the artist's greatest concern: the freedom to create, the courage to create in a climate of uncertainty and repression

'A very gripping story . . . the reader is drawn in inexorably to discover what horror lies at the heart of it . . . an apocalyptic fable for today'

'Many respectable judges would put Edric in the top ten of British novelists currently at work . . . as a writer, he specialises in the delicate hint and the game not given away'

'It will be surprising if this year sees a more disturbing or haunting novel'

'Stunning . . . evocatively brings to life the stifling humidity and constant rainfall of the Congo'

'A really brilliant first novel, he is obviously a major talent'

'The match of the madder moments of John Irving or Tom Sharpe...this is a promisingly entertaining "lite" read'

'At its best when taking pot-shots at a wide variety of modern ills - fast food, tabloid media, downsizing, soap-opera politics...One of Morgan's nicer inventions is a computer program that boils down complex texts to their essentials. Its treatment of the Old Testament renders it down to: "Because I say so, that's why"'

'Suspenseful, atmospheric and highly intelligent, Jody Shields focuses a brilliant light on the murky world of imperial Vienna'