Acknowledgments

My life has been made richer in part thanks to the stories that have come before mine. I can only hope to do the same for those who come after me. Thank you to all the writers, storytellers, and dreamers for making it possible for my book to be published. I would like to thank Gran for leading by example and loving me fiercely. Special thanks to my mother and sister for listening to my stories when I was a child, feeding my imagination always, and supporting my pursuit of me. My heartfelt thanks to my children, Amira, Marat, and Noah for traveling across the world in pursuit of my dreams, for your inexhaustible support and love, and for providing beacons of hope for the future that will always lead me home. Thank you all for inspiring me to be a better me. You three are my joy.

Remembered began with a series of questions. Thank you to Lancaster University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences for funding my research and allowing me the space, resources, and time for practice-based research so that I could explore where the questions led. Thank you, Jenn Ashworth, thesis supervisor, colleague, and friend, for challenging me to write painful stories, crying as I cried, and for your support, editorial and otherwise. Thank you to the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing for years of supporting my creativity, research, and projects, and for the many colleagues who were generous with time, information, and feedback. Thank you, Jonathan Taylor and George Green, for carefully reading my thesis and believing it should be published. Thank you to my dear friend Naomi Kruger for your close reading, for answering questions late in the night, and for your translations. Thank you, Wanda Sosa Hawkins, Peace Toleito, and Candace Hantouche for years of friendship and support no matter where I am in the world. Thank you to the Society of Authors. The Authors’ Foundation Grant awarded me precious support and space to write when I needed it most.

As I prepared for life post-PhD, thank you, New Writing North. The Northern Writers’ Award for fiction provided me with support to buy time to edit the novel and afforded me opportunities to engage in the wider writing community. Thanks to you, I met my wonderful agent, Elise Dillsworth. Thank you, Elise, for championing my writing even before you read the complete manuscript, for your editorial eye, and for your patience in the face of my impatience. Special thanks for walking first in front of the world’s largest canine and putting your life at risk. And a warm thank-you for knowing Remembered would be at home with Dialogue Books in the UK and in hands of the lovely Sharmaine Lovegrove.

Thank you to Caskie Mushens and to Jenny Bent of the Bent Agency for helping Remembered find a home with Blackstone.

Thank you to the team at Blackstone for welcoming me as one of your authors and for bringing Remembered to readers in the US and Canada. It means so much to me. Thank you to my editor, Deirdre Curley, for your eye for detail and close reading.

Finally, a warm thank-you to readers everywhere for spending time with my characters and their stories. May all of us find our way home.