The Ghost Who Bled

In Elizabethan London, puritan zealots conspire to persecute a playwright by the name of Christopher Marlowe. In postwar Japan, a ghost haunts the ruins of Hiroshima, and a home to which he can never return. In Cambodia, a woman returns from exile with her American husband, to finally reveal the awkward truth about their relationship. Gregory Norminton’s stories find their characters torn between conflicting impulses—between temptation and fortitude, hubris and shame, longing and regret. Spanning centuries and continents, these stories reveal Norminton as a master storyteller of incredible range, as he alights on moments of doubt and duality to draw scalpel-sharp insights into human nature.

Gregory Norminton is the author of several novels, including Arts and Wonders,Ghost Portrait, Serious Things, and The Ship of Fools. His work for radio includes dramatizations ofThe Machine Stops by E.M. Forster and Utz by Bruce Chatwin. He is a regular contributor to theVerb on BBC Radio 3, and his stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4, and in London Magazine, Prospect, Resurgence, and Zembla. He has also been writer in residence at Magdalene College, Cambridge and he was a featured artist at the 2003 International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.