Robert Edric was born in 1956. In his writing career, he has been a winner of the 1985 James Tait Black Prize (for Winter Garden), a runner-up for the 1986 Guardian Fiction Prize (for A New Ice Age), a runner-up for the 2001 WH Smith Literary Award (for The Book of the Heathen), and in 2002, a Booker longlister (for Peacetime). After The Song Cycle Trilogy, his critically acclaimed series of crime novels set in Hull, Gathering the Water heralds his return to historical literary fiction and was also longlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize. His latest novel, The Kingdom of Ashes, is now available from Doubleday.
Gathering the Water belongs with a group of his novels whose artistry and resonance constitute one of the most astonishing bodies of work to appear from a single author for a generation. <br>- Daily Telegraph <br> A compelling story.... Robert Edric writes with a steady rhythm that, like the flow of the diverted dam waters, fills in a picture of horror and loss with a sustained and unrelenting force. <br>- Times Literary Supplement