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+<html>
+  <head>
+    <title>Introduction</title>
+    <meta name="author" content="John Gu" />
+    <meta property="article:published_time" content="2025-07-05T00:00:00Z" />
+    <link rel="canonical" href="https://ageofpeace.substack.com/p/introduction-and-welcome" />
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <article>
+      <p><em>After securing a teaching job at a foreign university on “the thinnest set of credentials,” a young man sets off for life in Varrenia, an impoverished eastern kingdom still emerging from the shadow of a decades-long dictatorship. Years later, living in the decadent capital of Garamdal, our protagonist watches a war unfold in the republic’s restive eastern provinces and reflects on what he has gained — and lost — in a life of travel.</em></p>
+      <h2>About the author</h2>
+      <p>
+In my late twenties, I did a short stint as a grad student in mathematical logic at the University of Amsterdam, where I learned that I am <em>not</em> smart enough to be a mathematician. After dropping out of grad school, I ended up staying in Europe for five years. This novel, greatly influenced by that experience, is my love letter to Europe and to that time.
+      </p>
+      <img src="johngu.jpg" alt="John Gu" />
+      <p>I am also very proud to be able say that I grew up in Houston — I actually come from the same neighborhood as Lizzo, Mo Amer, and Tila Tequila, cultural luminaries all.</p>
+      <h2>Previous publications</h2>
+      <p> TBD </p>
+
+      <h2>Influences</h2>
+      <p>Some readers of my work have remarked that it shares an affinity with the following writers and books. In some cases, these figures represent inspirations that I have leaned into, in others, the similarities (of theme, style, subject matter) are more coincidental:</p>
+      <ul>
+        <li>In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin</li>
+        <li>Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee</li>
+        <li>Balkan Ghosts, Robert Kaplan</li>
+        <li>A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul</li>
+        <li>Paul Bowles</li>
+        <li>Milan Kundera</li>
+      </ul>
+    </article>
+  </body>
+</html>