Luke Williams: The Echo Chamber

This book contains passages, all of them slightly altered, from the following works:

Charles Allen, Tales from the Dark Continent , part of the trilogy, Plain Tales from the British Empire , Little, Brown, 1998.

Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry , trans. David McDuff, Penguin, 2005.

Günter Grass, The Tin Drum , trans. Ralph Manheim, Vintage, 2004.

George Perec, Life A User’s Manual , trans. David Bellos, Harvill, 1996.

Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles , trans. Celina Wieniewska, Penguin, 1992.

Joan Sharwood-Smith Diary of a Colonial Wife: An African Experience , Radcliffe Press, 1992.

Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘From a Railway Carriage’.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.

My first debt goes to Natasha Soobramanien. I couldn’t have written this book without her — literally. She was my first reader throughout and consequently knew the book, and Evie, better than anyone else bar me. It seemed natural, then, and wholly in keeping with her contribution thus far, when, on completing the second part, I asked her to write Damaris’ diary. I gave her some dates and a few sketchy plot lines; other than this, she conceived and wrote what turned out to be chapters twenty-five and twenty-six entirely without my meddling.

Enormous thanks must also go to my family, Glenna, Derek, Hilery, Martin, Saul and Thea.

Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency was amazing: enthusiastic, encouraging, patient and a great reader.

Thanks also to my editors at Hamish Hamilton: Simon Prosser, Juliette Mitchell and Anna Kelly.

I am grateful to the Arts Council East and the Charles Pick Fellowship for their generous financial support of this project.

Many others helped in the process of writing, each in their individual ways. Thanks to you all:

Sara De Bondt, Fiona Bowden, Lawrence Bradby, Jon Cook, Andrew Cowan, Owen Dudley Edwards, Oliver Emanuel, Alex Graves, Sara Heitlinger, Sophie Logan, Robert McGill, Richard Misek, Sam Mungall, Paul Nugent, Martin Pick, Chris Power, Max Schaefer, Michal Shavit, Ali Smith, Lucy Steeds, Mada Vicassiau, Yair Wallach and Josh Warren.