During a recent tour to Guam, members of the Tsunami Teetotallers (a Japan-based ad hoc rugby team) were left speechless when, during prematch introductions, their scrumhalf Richard Beard declared himself to be an English "experimental novelist."
Born in 1967, Beard graduated from Cambridge University and worked as a teacher before enrolling in Malcolm Bradbury's Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia in 1994.
His first novel in the experimental vein, titled "X20 (A Novel of Not Smoking)," was published in 1996, and was followed in 1998 by "Damascus" -- which will be published in Japanese by Shogen-Sha in June. Meanwhile, "The Cartoonist" -- an anticonsumerist political novel originally set in EuroDisney but rewritten to be located in "a theme park near Paris" to conform with copyright and libel laws -- hit the shelves in 2000 and this February saw publication of his latest novel, "Dry Bones."