A WRITER HAS come to town. A reputation for greatness precedes him. His prize-winning books are plainly spoken, yet demanding. In person, he is a man of few words. He looks fit, with a sweet smile, and perhaps a little shy. He gets a bicycle and rides, under a blue sky, on the path by the river in the linear park. He doesn’t need to know that the lake he passes is artificial, formed by a weir across a flow of water that becomes a mere trickle on the other side, where tortoises sun themselves on the rocks.

The great writer is fleetingly visible here and there, in the library, on the campus, and presumably at the airport as he flies in and out. He appears at writers’ gatherings around the world, and in print in many places, and as a subject for countless theses and papers.