Some while ago I began a novel Waterland in which though I did not know it then the landscape of that part of England known as the Pens was to play a major part Since the novel was published I have often been asked why as an ignorant and perhaps presumptuous Londoner I chose to write about a part of the country with which I have no personal connection The short answer is that I chose the Fens because of their apparent unobtrusiveness  a flat and empty stage on which to set the drama of my book This as I learnt was merely theory The Fens once ones imagination has got to grips with them are neither flat nor empty What I discovered was that the Fens while as richly English as any other part of England are also compellingly and hauntingly strange It is remarkable that there should still exist in the middle of England a region which most English people find peculiarly foreign especially when so many other distinctive and remoter areas of Britain have been ingested into the nations cultural and literary heritage The Fens are both empty and brimming both cultivated and tenaciously wild apparently open and obvious yet profoundly mysterious