First Impressions

The words of this week's First Impressions, our newcompetition in which you have to identify the opening sentenceof a well-known book, were penned by a novelist regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English - his third language:

"To begin with, I wish to disclaim the possession of those high gifts of imagination and expression which would have enabled my pen to create for the reader the personality of the man who called himself, after the Russian custom, Cyril son of Isidor - Kirylo Sidorovitch -Razumov."

The winner of last week's competition, who identified Graham Swift's Waterland , is Earl Ware of Plymouth, Devon.