Enduring and deepest gratitude to everybody who has met this work in every good way, especially those I have forgotten (apologies) to call by name.
To those named: your generosity and brilliance are circular gifts.
Lynn Henry: Thank you many times again and again for making light every heavy task of this work. The work of finding such imaginative shape and measure owes so much to your editorial guidance and extraordinary care. What a great luck to have your genius here.
Torkwase Dyson: I am indebted to you for your immense gifts on any day. The illustrations that you have created to accompany these stories are an event unto themselves. They have doubled the book. “Each of them, is a poem,” a friend said to me. I am indebted and in awe. Endless gratitude.
You who have touched this book in some way: Maaza Mengiste, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Dionne Brand, David Chariandy, Christina Sharpe, Kaie Kellough, John Keene, Saidiya Hartman, Edwidge Danticat, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Rinaldo Walcott, Michael Helm, Jennifer Duncan, Natalie Diaz, Alicia Elliot, Banff Centering Ourselves crew. The University of Guelph MFA in Creative Writing. Creative Writing at York University. My agent Samantha Haywood. Martha Kanya-Forstner, Kate Sinclair, Talia Abramson, Terri Nimmo, Melanie Little, Ruta Liormonas, Ashley Dunn, Nathaniel McKenzie and the audio team, and everyone involved at Knopf Canada. I am grateful for your presence and your meticulous work.
My thanks also to institutions for aiding the completion of this work: Queen’s University Writer in Residence; Banff Centre Fellowship; the Inaugural Shaftesbury Writer in Residence at Victoria College—University of Toronto; Civitella Ranieri Fellowship—Italy; Literature Colloquium Berlin—Germany; the Windham-Campbell Prize; and the Canada Council for the Arts—all for their generous support.
Some of the stories in Code Noir: Metamorphoses have been recognized as follows:
“No I.D or We Could Be Brothers” (2019 Journey Prize longlist). Thank you to Brick Magazine and the Journey Prize.
“The Origin of the Lullaby” (2020 Journey Prize Longlist). Thank you to Joyland Magazine and the Journey Prize.
“Into Timmins” (2018 Toronto Book Awards finalist, The Unpublished City: Vol I ). Thank you to editor Dionne Brand, publisher Book*Hug, and the City of Toronto Book Awards.
“Cedar Grove Rose” (2020 Shirley Jackson Awards finalist, “Tiny Nightmares”). Thank you to editors Nadxieli Nieto & Lincoln Michel and Catapult Books.
The following publications published earlier versions of the following stories:
“The Boy, The Girl, The Dog, And I Was There” (The Yale Review); “Gardens in the Minibus” (The New Quarterly); “A History of A Noise” (The Puritan); “Black Ark” (The Capilano Review).
“The Keeper of the Dates,” “Clocktowers,” “The Project,” and “Earth in the Time of Aimé Césaire” were presented at the Loophole of Retreat: Venice.
I would also like to acknowledge the following:
“Opening Remarks” quotes, with permission, a line from Dionne Brand’s “Nomenclature for the Time Being” (M&S, 2022): What is it to speak as though the world you know is the world?”
“Thing Without A Name (After V.S. Naipaul)” is a fragmented re-imagining of the first two stories (“Bogart” and “The Thing Without A Name”) of V.S Naipaul’s short story collection “Miguel Street” (Andre Deutsch, 1959).
“Earth in the Time of Billie Holiday” quotes the phrase “in my solitude” from Billie Holiday’s song “Solitude” (Mercury Records, 1952).
“Earth in the time Of Aime Cesaire” reconfigures the quote “one must begin somewhere” from Aime Cesaire’s poem, “Cahier d’un retour de pays netal” (Presence Africaine, 2000).
“Metamorphosis”: 1 reference Kamau Brathwaite’s “Middle Passages” (New Directions Press, 1993).
Always and again: Dionne Brand. I wrote them all. Thank you.
Thank you, reader. No book arrives without you.