Photograph by Murdo Macleod

The amazingly prolific and diverse writer is best known for his graphic novels: the Sandman series of comics. However, more recently his success has come in the form of books without pictures in the science fiction and fantasy genres. And while his earlier work has exclusively focused on adults, his latter work now includes those for children, although you cannot expect his stories not to have the dark side.

What I am particularly and eagerly awaiting for is his version of Journey to the West which is supposed to feature Sun Wukong – (the Monkey King) – and Xuanzang the historical seventh-century monk who went through treacherous roads, mountains, and valleys on his way to India to bring the Buddhist sacred texts back to China.

Gaiman says, “It will also partly be about me travelling through China and having peculiar things happen to me – the kinds of things you just can’t plan. “Like nearly buying a human elbow. It was being sold by a little old man with a tourist stand outside a temple. After failing to sell me any of the things on the table he rummaged underneath and brought out this bone wrapped in newspaper which turns out to be half a human arm, probably many hundreds of years old – things he’s found after the archeologists went away …”

Wow.

Can’t wait.