Part 54 (2/2)

She goes to stand behind her man, who is frying little slices of pork fillet in b.u.t.ter. She puts her arms around him and leans her head against his back, sensing his warmth against her cheek.

The two girls smile at her. Ibens ear is pressed in between Gunnars shoulder blades, and she can hear the beating of his heart.

This is exactly how I wanted it to be, she thinks. Like this.

acknowledgments.

A list of the people in Denmark to whom I owe thanks would take up several pages, and so for the American edition, Ill just mention the people at the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Copenhagen: in particular, Torben Jrgensen and former research director Eric Markusen (now at Southwest State University, Minnesota). When I first called the center in the summer of 2000 and told them of my plans to write a novel about a fict.i.tious genocide information center and the severe office hara.s.sment problems among its staff members, they could have reacted in so many ways. What they did, however, was to recognize immediately the possibilities for information on genocide in this novel. They invited me into their midst and supported my work more than I could ever have hoped.

In the United States, I thank Professor James Waller at Whitworth College. Our discussions at the biannual conference of the International a.s.sociation of Genocide Scholars, as well as our correspondence afterward, helped me write the articles that are part of this novel.

I am also indebted to Yale Universitys professors Ben Kiernan and Claude Rawson. Our talks during my visit to Yales Genocide Studies program helped me enormously to formulate Ibens thoughts on perpetrator behavior.

Thank you, too, to my friends Doritt and Joseph Linsk, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, who put a roof over my head for several weeks as I worked on the chapters about Iben in Kenya.

I cannot give enough thanks to my editors Lorna Owen at Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, New York, and Kirsty Dunseath at Weidenfeld Nicholson, London. Ive been amazed, witnessing their complete devotion to transferring my novel to the very different English language.

And then, I am grateful indeed to my first and best reader, Mette Thorsen.

a note about the author.

Christian Jungersens first novel, Thickets, won the Danish Best First Novel of the Year Award. The Exception, his second novel and the first to be translated into English, won the Danish Golden Laurels prize, and has been a huge bestseller across Europe. Born in Copenhagen, he now divides his time between Dublin, Ireland, and New York City.

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2008.

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