It is 3am in New York but Mohamed El-Erian is not sleeping the contented sleep of a man who, only hours earlier, collected a prestigious prize for his book on world markets. He is up and preparing for a dawn flight west – back to work as co-chief executive of Pimco, the giant California-based investment management company.

When Markets Collide, the winner of the 2008 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, has an intensity, urgency and topicality that makes parts of it read as though it was written yesterday. But the idea for the book was planted in El-Erian’s head in August 2007 – partly on the basis of comment pieces that he had written in the FT and other publications. The first draft was filed in November and it was finalised in January.