Jim Crace's imaginative first book, seven linked stories, now available in a deluxe paperback edition in Ecco's The Art of the Story Series

"Makes us see our own world more clearly . . . brilliant, provocative and delightful" --the New York Times

Jim Crace's internationally acclaimed first book explores the tribes and communities, conflicts and superstitions, flora and fauna of a wholly spellbinding place: an imaginary seventh continent. In these seven tales Crace travels a strange and wonderful landscape: "Talking Skull" takes the reader to a tiny agricultural village renowned for the sexually-charged, mystical milk of its calves; "Electricity" introduces a remote flatland region where a monumental ceiling fan changes an entire town's attitude toward modernization. From the acacia scrub of the flatlands to a city bazaar jammed with vegetable stalls, tourists, and beggars, Crace's invented world is as fabulous as it is eerily familiar.