"Remarkable erudition and compelling imagination, an American Umberto Eco" - The Spectator"Gripping, richly written and overflowing with historic detail" - New York Times

Richard Zimler, born in 1956 in New York, has lived in Portugal since 1990, where he is a professor of journalism at the University of Porto. His short fiction, which has appeared in Britain in the London Magazine and in America in The James White Review, won the 1994 Panurge Prize. Zimler is the author of numerous novels, including The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon (1997), one of Arcadia's most successful books, and Angelic Darkness (1999.