David Mitchell is one of Britain's most influential novelists. "Ghostwritten" (1999), his first novel, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Shortlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize for fiction, his second novel, "number9dream" (2001), which is set in Japan, tells of a character's search for his father, of a wartime fighter pilot, and of a journey around contemporary Tokyo.

In 2003, he was included in Granta magazine's list of Best Young British Authors, while 2004 saw the publication of "Cloud Atlas," a multiple narrative bristling with ideas and storytelling bravado. His most recent novel, "Black Swan Green" (2006) recounts 13 months in the life of a 13-year-old boy growing up in Worcestershire, England — a bildungsroman full of pop-culture references.

Mitchell's work has been called quirky, scattershot, gimmicky, and even insubstantial, yet David Traynor of the Irish Independent has argued that David Mitchell "well may be possessed of genius." Now back in Japan, Mitchell is working on a historical novel set in Nagasaki. In a series of e-mails, Steve Finbow asks him about Japan and his latest work.

You describe your new novel as historical, a Napoleonic-era saga set in Nagasaki. Could you tell us more?