Edric, Robert

(British, 1956– )

Born in Sheffield, Edric studied Geography at Hull University and now lives in East Yorkshire. His first novel, Winter Garden, won the James Tait Black Prize in 1985; his second, A New Ice Age, was runner-up for the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1986. His eleven intelligent and austere novels merit wider recognition. I would start with In Desolate Heaven (1997), which is set in and around a clinic in Switzerland in 1919; then try The Book of the Heathen (2000), set in a remote trading station in the Belgian Congo in 1897. An Englishman is to be tried for the murder of an African child, and there are sinister political undertones. In Elysium (1996), the last surviving pure-bred male Tasmanian Aborigine, educated, intelligent, articulate, alcoholic, clashes with the English scientist sent to record the details of his life.

Sebastian Faulks, Beryl Bainbridge, Jane Rogers  AE