Yesterday was a significant day in the history of Gylphi. The very first book in the new Contemporary Writers: Critical Essays book series (ed. Sarah Dillon) was published.
The book is entitled David Mitchell: Critical Essays and examines for the majority the writer's first novels: number9dream, Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas. There are notable extensions to this, especially in the introduction, where Sarah Dillon takes us to the latest published novels and beyond to discuss books currently being written by the author.
This is a project that began life over two and a half years ago with an email from Sarah, who had been talking to our SF Storyworld's series editor, Paul March-Russell. In the beginning the discussion had been about approaching David Mitchell from the position of science fiction (SF), but the publication of Black Swan Green made clear that Mitchell could not be considered from the perspective of SF alone.
On the first day of the conference, from which this book arose, torrential rain hit Scotland, the rail lines from the southern border into St Andrews were flooded, and this threw travel plans into chaos.
The event took place at the University of St Andrews regardless. Among the delegates who braved the weather to attend was David Mitchell, making this a unique event, and Mitchell's reflections on the conference can be read in the foreword to the book, which you can order online here.
This week there will be more posts walking through the book and its topics, please keep an eye out for them.
