About the Author

Richard Adams' first four novels—WATERSHIP DOWN, SHARDIK, THE PLAGUE DOGS, and THE GIRL IN A SWING (available in a Signet edition)—won him international acclaim for his magical storytelling, his lyric use of language, and his extraordinary aptitude for the spellbinding narrative with mythic overtones. Now, in his fifth work of fiction, MAIA, he puts these gifts to the service of a novel entirely different from its predecessors, set in the fantasyland of the Beklan Empire.

Mr. Adams was born in England in 1920. He lives on the Isle of Man with his wife and two daughters.