I thank the Fulbright Foundation for giving me the time, space and solitude to rework A Bit of Earth. Special thanks to Professor Peter Nazareth and his wife Mary from the International Writing Program, University of Iowa, and Professor Shirley Geok-lin Lim, University of California, Santa Barbara, for being such wonderful supportive hosts during my 1997 sojourn in the United States.
On the Singapore home front, my special thanks to our poets and prose writers Lee Tzu Pheng, Leong Liew Geok, Rasiah Halil, Catherine Lim, Edwin Thumboo, Robert Yeo, Kirpal Singh and many others whose public readings and conversations on writing and literature kept the little creative fire in me burning bright.
I also thank my friends Chen Chong and Liang-yue, who translated the two fragments on pages 11 and 420 into Chinese.