His first novel, The Calligrapher (2004), was highly praised and translated into seven languages. It was selected by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News as a Best Book of the Year and was a finalist in The William Saroyan International Prize for fiction at Stanford University.

His second novel, Self Help (2007), has recently been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

At present, he is working on his third novel pretty much full time.

Ed continues to live in London with prolonged visits to Rome whenever he can get away with it.