The Incarnations

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Jane Lawson for her support and encouragement over the years I was writing The Incarnations. Many thanks to Andrew Kidd and Marianne Velmans.

Thank you to Hubert Ho, Jennifer Yeo, Richard Dudas, Sal Attanasio, Liang Junhong, Julia Wang, Glen Brown, Emily Midorikawa and Zakia Uddin.

I am very grateful to the Royal Literary Fund for the fellowship that enabled me to keep writing this book, and to Tim Leadbeater and the wonderful staff at Leeds Trinity University. Thank you also to the Arts Council England and the Society of Authors for the grants I was awarded.

In 2010 I taught English as a volunteer to patients at the Beijing Chaoyang Mental Health Service Centre, and to civil servants at the Ministry of Health in Beijing. I would like to thank all those I taught, for their friendship and the insight I gained into China and their lives.

Many thanks to my fellow writers at the Beijing Writers’ Group for reading the early chapters.

Thank you to the Corporation of Yaddo, the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, the Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat, and all the inspiring writers and artists I met on these residencies.

Thank you, as always, to my father, mother and sister.

Thank you most of all to Robert Powers, who supported me throughout the writing of this book, and to whom The Incarnations is dedicated.