This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

‘In Winter The Sky’ was first published, in a different form and under the title of ‘What The Sky Sees’, in Granta 78, 2002.

‘If It Keeps On Raining’ was first published in the BBC National Short Story Award 2010 anthology, by Comma Press. It was also broadcast on Radio 4 in November 2010.

The title of ‘Fleeing Complexity’ is taken from an interview with Richard Ford conducted by Tim Adams, published in Granta 99, 2007.

‘Which Reminded Her, Later’ was first published in Granta 99, 2007.

‘Close’ was commissioned by the Cheltenham Literary Festival, and first broadcast on Radio 4 in October 2007. It was first published in The Sea of Azov, a World Jewish Relief anthology published by Five Leaves, 2009.

‘We Wave And Call’ was first published by the Guardian Weekend magazine in 2011.

‘Supplementary Notes To The Testimony’ was inspired by stories I was told whilst on a trip to the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, and uses the very broadly transposed outlines of those stories as its unseen background. Many thanks to Carbino, Anil Osman and Mahamud Ismail for speaking so openly with me; and thanks to Médecins Sans Frontières and the Sunday Times for organising and supporting the trip. I also drew on an interview with Mark Argent, a demining engineer working with Danish Churches Aid in the Nuba Mountains (any errors in the section about landmines being my own, of course), and on a 2001 Observer article by Burhan Wazir.

‘Wires’ was first published in the BBC National Short Story Award 2010 anthology, by Comma Press. It was also broadcast on Radio 4 in September 2011.

Thanks, variously, for support, insight, reading and inspiration, to the following: Kathy Belden, Tracy Bohan, Katie Bond, Cassie Browne, Sarah-Jane Forder, Helen Garnons-Williams, Peter Gustavsson, Pippa Hennesey, Chloe Hooper, Erica Jarnes, Maggie and David Jones, Anne Joseph, Kirstie Joynson, Tam Laniado, Elena Lappin, Éireann Lorsung, Carrie Majer, Colum McCann, Maile Meloy, Nottingham Writers’ Studio, Richard Pilgrim, Mark Robson, the Society of Authors, Craig Taylor, Matthew Welton, Oliver Wood, Writing East Midlands, John Young.

And thanks, for everything, to Alice, Eleanor and Lewis.