First published in the U.K. in 1999, David Mitchell’s debut novel, “Ghostwritten,” intertwines nine stories of nine people in nine countries around the world.

A gallery attendant at the Hermitage. A young jazz buff in Tokyo. A crooked British lawyer in Hong Kong. A disc jockey in Manhattan. A physicist in Ireland. An elderly woman running a tea shack in rural China. A cult-controlled terrorist in Okinawa, Japan. A musician in London. A transmigrating spirit in Mongolia. They influence each other in mysterious ways, creating an unusual experience of cause and effect.

David Mitchell is a 31-year-old expatriate Englishman. He wrote “Ghostwritten” while teaching English in Hiroshima, Japan, where he still lives and is working on a second novel.

Listen to Mitchell read from his debut novel.