'ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY' INDEPENDENT?The Sunday Times number one bestseller? Longlisted for the Booker Prize? Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize?Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prizes'Thrillingly suspenseful' Sunday Times'Stunning' Independent on Sunday'A classic' Washington PostIn your hands is a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West.Here, in the dying days of the eighteenth century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune.Instead he loses his heart. Step onto the streets of Dejima and mingle with scheming traders, spies, interpreters, servants and concubines as two cultures converge.In a tale of integrity and corruption, passion and power, the key is control - of riches and minds, and over death itself. Praise for David Mitchell'A thrilling and gifted writer'Financial Times'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good'Daily Mail'Mitchell is, clearly, a genius'New York Times Book Review'An author of extraordinary ambition and skill'Independent on Sunday'A superb storyteller'New Yorker