Goodreads asked Steve Shahbazian:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Steve Shahbazian I got the idea for my novel Green and Pleasant Land way back after leaving university. I remembered the predictions in the 1980s of how Japan was destined to dominate the world economy and the books that explained how this was due to Japan Inc's keiretsu, MITI and the “iron triangle” of party, state and business.

Then, the Japanese bubble burst and the new books explained that Japan Inc was a myth, the keiretsu was a fable, MITI’s power was overstated and there never was any iron triangle. I then imagined a world in which a powerful businessman went searching for the centre of power, only to find nothing there.

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