by Kim Echlin
you will remember
for we in our youth
did these things
yes many and beautiful things
—SAPPHO, FRAGMENT 24A (TRANS. ANNE CARSON)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Julia Ghani for consulting on culture, Shalini Konanur, legal counsel at South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, for consulting on law and culture, Jamil Ahmad (The Wandering Falcon) for advice on Afghan custom, Mohsin Hamid (The Reluctant Fundamentalist) for a discussion of culture, literature and psychology, Zarmina Rafi for literary and cultural discussion, Dinshaw and Dinaz Avari at the Beach Luxury Hotel for ongoing Karachi historical consults, Menin Rodrigues and Norman D’Souza for music and historical culture in Karachi, Sister Mary and Sister Berchmanns at Jesus and Mary Convent School, Karachi, for reflections on education in Karachi. I am grateful to Ameena Saiyid and Asif Farrukhi at the Karachi Literature Festival for the opportunity to share in vibrant literary discussion. I am grateful to Alan and Leslie Nickell for introductions to new communities, for discussion about jazz, writing and relationship. Louie Fleck was most generous with historical research from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Marieke Meyer with jazz research. For help with translations, thank you to Nie Zhixiong, Dr. Lihua Gui and Haneen Tamari. Thank you to Dr. Janice Williamson for probing cultural discussions and for discussing the work of Sherene Razak, Yasmin Jiwani and Sunera Thobani, and to Ann Simpson for reading and discussion. A special thank you to Sandra Campbell for our years of discussion of all things literary and cultural.
The team at Hamish Hamilton are without parallel. Thank you to David Ross, Shaun Oakey, Karen Alliston, Brittany Lavery, Ashley Audrain, Stephen Myers and Deborah Sun de la Cruz.
Nicole Winstanley, president and publisher, is the energy and inspiration at the centre of this talented team. She loves literature and is a risk-taker, an editor par excellence and friend. A special thank you, Nicole.
To friends and family, a special thank you to Adam and Ann Winterton, Mark and Joanne Echlin, Ann Echlin and the late Randy Echlin, Barb Clark and Ken Foreacre and to Paul Echlin for your endless support. My mother, Madeleine Echlin, believed in my writing when the page was still blank. There are three very special people who live with the dailiness of writing, supporting it with the intellectual curiosity, humour and pleasure in language that I love. Thank you to my husband, Ross Upshur, and to my daughters, Olivia Upshur and Sara Upshur, for all that you do.
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First published 2015
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Copyright © Kim Echlin, 2015
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Echlin, Kim, 1955–, author
Under the visible life / Kim Echlin.
ISBN 978-0-670-06532-5 (bound)
I. Title.
PS8559.C45U53 2015 C813’.54 C2014-907253-8
eBook ISBN 978-0-14-319442-2
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