Open Pit (36 page)

In El Salvador: Jaime Martínez, Jesus Morales, Damian Alegria, Katherine Miller, Juan Carlos Hernández, Remberto Nolasco, Helda Consuelo Molina, Wilma Angelica Santo, José Santo Márquez, Sister Noemi of the Bajo Lempa, and, especially, Padre Rogelio Ponseele in Perquín, the esteemed Mirna Perla, and generous hosts José Martir Pineda Nolasco and family.

Thank you to the Fundación Valparaíso, where I revised an early draft, and to Cindy Patton, my generous employer during much of the writing process.

The editors and readers at NeWest reviewed my manuscript with careful attention. I thank them, especially Douglas Barbour. My own readers were Adam Frank, Jeff Hodgson, Marc-André Pigeon, Jean-Claude Pigeon, Anar Ali, and (twice, and with heart) Nick Kazamia. Sanchita Balanchandran checked a portion of the book.

Lynn Coady, Madeleine Thien, Greg Hollingshead, Andreas Schroeder, Ann Shin, Nick Kazamia and Anar Ali all guided me through the labyrinthine publication process, for which I am grateful.

My friends deserve a medal for years of encouragement, especially Nick Kazamia and Anar Ali, whose phone lines must be burned clear through. Thank you to my family for believing in me, starting with my mother, Dolly Pigeon, and my siblings, Marc-Andre Pigeon, Jeanne-Claire Sloan and Jean-Claude Pigeon, soul sister Colette Gignac, brother-in-law extraordinaire Kevin Sloan, compatriot Chris Guppy, and all of my cherished Pigeon, Shea, Venturi, Goth, Mirka, Grenier and Abolins aunts, uncles and cousins.

Thank you to Merle Frank for coming along, and, most of all, to my closest reader, interlocutor and companion, Adam Frank, who gave me space, time and so much more — even the book's title. Without these Franks, forget it.

MARGUERITE PIGEON
is a former journalist and traveller turned writer of fiction and poetry. In
2001
she lived for several months near the Honduran-Salvadoran border working with a local indigenous organization, an experience that became the inspiration for
Open Pit
. She later attended
UBC
's Creative Writing
MFA
program. Since graduating, her short stories and poems have appeared in journals throughout Canada and internationally, and her first book of poetry,
Inventory
(Anvil
2009
), was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award. Originally from Blind River, Ontario, she currently lives in Vancouver.
Open Pit
is her first novel.