What Belongs to You

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of the first section of this novel was published as a novella in 2011. Thank you to Keith Tuma, Dana Leonard, and everyone at Miami University Press. Special thanks to David Schloss.

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Anna Stein created a place in the world for this book by the sheer force of her belief in it. Thank you also to Alex Hoyt, Sally Riley, and Nishta Hurry. I’m grateful to Mitzi Angel for her heroic editing, and to everyone at Farrar, Straus and Giroux for being so welcoming of this novel and its author. Thank you especially to Will Wolfslau for his invaluable help.

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It has been a privilege to spend the last two years at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Thank you to Connie Brothers, Deb West, Jan Zenisek, and Kelly Smith. I’m grateful to Lan Samantha Chang for her generous and brilliant teaching, and to the members of her Fall 2013 novel workshop, especially Micah Stack, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and D. Wystan Owen. Work on this book was supported by an Iowa Arts Fellowship and a Richard E. Guthrie Memorial Fellowship; many thanks to the University of Iowa and the Guthrie family for their generosity.

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For advice and encouragement, thank you to Elizabeth Frank, Kyle Minor, Peter Cameron, Elizabeth Kostova, Honor Moore, Paul Whitlatch, Margot Livesey, Robert Boyers, and Stephen McCauley. For the inspiration of their teaching and example, thank you to Frank Bidart, Kevin Brockmeier, Carolyn Forché, Carl Phillips, Jorie Graham, and James Longenbach. For pointing me toward a title, thank you to Meredith Kaffel. For checking my Bulgarian, thank you to Maria Manahova and Boian Popunkiov.

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For reading first and final drafts, thank you to Mary Rakow, Ilya Kaminsky, and Ricardo Moutinho Ferreira.

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It is impossible to imagine my life without Alan Pierson and Max Freeman, my chosen family. Finally, thank you to Luis Muñoz, por una canción largamente esperada.