ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This novel is a belated offering, taking many years to surface in the world, because life is like that.

It was started with many other works as part of a course I ran at the NSW Writers’ Centre – The Year of the Novel – back in 2012. I decided that I shouldn’t set my students the challenge of writing a novel in a year without going through the same struggles myself. I thank every one of those students for the rich conversations and their beautiful stories – a year where we ‘murdered our darlings and kept some of the remains … carved symbols out of fire and discovered that you can, actually, learn to fly a helicopter using visualisation.’ We published an anthology together that we titled Dandelions and Helicopters as ‘an airborne metaphor’ for the flight we took together.

The other students and staff I’d like to thank have worked with me in my role as founding Course Director for the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCII). All ideas have heritage and lineage, and many of the concepts in this novel come from discoveries into new worlds that we’ve opened up together. Leading this world-first transdisciplinary degree was a creative project like no other, keeping my imagination constantly seeking new territory. I thank every one of my students and staff for signing up for the adventure and for teaching me so much.

Thank you to my publisher, Barry Scott, for taking risks and helping to turn them into gold – for championing the more ephemeral, spiritual literary works that speak to the meaning and purpose that the world’s most abiding stories have always been tasked to address. And to my cover designer, Josh Durham and typesetter, Patrick Cannon.

And of course, I have to thank the hours of time that my editors have spent working with me as my secondary senses.

They say that authors ‘write drunk and edit sober.’ Seeing flaws can be a punishing process, with no end, so I thank my first editor, Linda Funnell, for flooding light on the big tasks that needed to be done. Thank you, Linda, for the talent and care you put into this novel and for your work on the others that you championed through HarperCollins. I am so grateful for your support. And thank you Penelope Goodes, my second editor, for painstaking attention to details – for helping me stand back and see this work as ‘Finished.’

Niki Zubrzycki, one of my first readers and dear friend, thank you for always being the first to read my books and for being so thoughtful in your responses. Sue Woolfe – thank you, too, for being a long-term supporter and for being a partner in organising literary soirées and other offerings for our literary community.

My family are my world and I thank them all for being the joy at the centre of my life. My sons, Tally, Rishi and Kashi for being my hope. Thank you Jan Golembiewski (if thanks could ever be enough) for being my fellow explorer of the miraculous. For being so present, so adoring and such an active co-creator of beauty, love and happiness in our lives. (Jan is also the author of ‘Magic,’ and a brilliant storyteller, so his reading of my work was incredibly valuable.)

I should mention that this novel has journeyed through many transitions, taking the time it did, and one turning point was a sabbatical I was generously offered through the University of Technology Sydney, when I went to Auroville to complete this book. I am so grateful for being given time to write in India’s utopian community that celebrates the lived experience of human unity – one of the themes in this book. The founders of Auroville were invisible contributors to this story and their legacy is found in its future-facing concerns. My protagonist was named in response to Sri Aurobindo’s poem, Savitri, about the transformative power of consciousness – a tale from the Upanishads that deserves re-telling. Thank you to all of my friends in Auroville who provoked me to think deeply about how we could live – especially Aster Patel.

Sabrina Lipovic – thank you for my title. How easy it was when you pointed out to me that my elephant wearing a headlight in the streets of New Delhi was a simple metaphor for the challenges inherent in an era of driverless cars!

In the time it took to write this novel I also suffered many losses, some of which are reflected in this book. None more significant than the loss of my father, William Le Hunte, who rang me up from the other side of the world to tell me that he was dying and that he loved me, the night before he left us. I share this in my acknowledgements because those so dear remain present, no matter where they go. I love him back, just as much as I ever did – perhaps even more so, if that’s even possible.

Then, there’s the subject of birth. Thank you David Miller for cropping up as someone worth acknowledging in all my books! Your work delivering babies in the shire is an inspiration.

Thank you to all the people who move in and out of our home, share meals and become part of our lives – as well as my mother-in-law, writer and artist, Kathy Golski, and our extended families.

I feel so blessed for these many relationships, and I offer blessings to my readers, who make writing worthwhile.

Love and wishes,

Bem Le Hunte, 2020