[英]艾倫•思彭斯 (Alan Spence) 著名的詩人、劇作傢、小說傢，同時也是伯丁大學文學創作係的教授，一年一度的倫敦文字節 （London Word Festival） 的藝術總監。曾榮獲格蘭菲迪蘇格蘭精神奬（Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award）、麥卡藍短篇小說奬（Macallan Short Story Prize）以及麥威題蘇格蘭年度作傢奬（McVitie’s Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year）等大奬。

The year is 1858. Thomas Glover is a restless young man with dreams of escaping Aberdeen. Abandoning his childhood sweetheart, he takes a posting as a trader in Japan. Within ten years he amasses a great fortune, learns the ways of the samurai and helps overthrow the Shogun - a rapid rise from lowly shipping clerk to millionaire industrialist. Yet behind Glover's astonishing success lies a man cut to the heart. His love affair with a courtesan - a woman who, unknown to him, would bear him the son for which he had always longed - would form a tragedy so dramatic as to be immortalized in the story of Madame Butterfly. The Pure Land relives in fiction the arc of Glover's true-life rise and fall, and forges a 100-year saga that culminates in the annihilation of Nagasaki in 1945.