Daniel Mason
Daniel Mason, a novelist, medical doctor, and art critic, is best known for his novel The Piano Tuner. This best-seller follows a British piano tuner to Burma, where he has been commissioned to tune a rare grand piano in the jungle hideaway of an eccentric British surgeon-major. An exploration of late Victorian imperialism and aesthetics, set in a part of the world where Mason himself spent a year researching malaria, the novel was written when Mason was a 26-year-old medical student. Mason has also conducted medical research in Brazil and Ecuador, and has published in popular and medical journals. His other books include A Far Country and Death of the Pugilist. He was hosted by the Department of English while at Berkeley. During his residency, Mason delivered a reading of his work and a public lectured entitled "Art and Psychosis and the Brazilian Artist ARthur Bispo do Rosario."