Yunte Huang - Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History

A t the end of a book about human bonds, I wish to express my enormous gratitude to Bob Weil and Glenn Mott, two men with whom I have had the good fortune of building a bond of friendship. Ever since he became my editor at Norton, Bob has remained my inspiration and a sui generis implied reader, who sets a high bar for all my writings. Having him as an editor should be the dream of every writer, and having him as a friend is a total blessing.

To call Glenn my agent is both a misnomer and, to quote Ezra Pound, a correct naming. While our friendship started more than a quarter century ago in Alabama, Glenn, who has agented all my books for Norton, truly represents my interests in all aspects, both as a writer and as a human being.

Writing is a solitary job, but I have been blessed with wonderful friends and colleagues, who have given me encouragement, assistance, and camaraderie, including Marjorie Perloff, Charles Bernstein, Hank Lazer, Stephen Greenblatt, Jill Lepore, Harry Stecopoulos, Candace Waid, Rita Raley, and Evan Wender.

I also wish to thank the following people and institutions for having most ably and generously assisted me in accessing precious images and research materials: William Brown at the State Archives of North Carolina; Matthew Turi and Tim Hodgdon at the Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Dr. Annette Ayers, president of Surry County Historical Society in North Carolina; Elizabeth Williams-Clymer, Special Collections Librarian, Kenyon College; Heather Magaw at the Osher Map Library, University of Southern Maine; Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University; and William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.

It is my good luck to have again had as my copyeditor Kathleen Brandes, who has, as always, gone well beyond her call of duty and made this a much better book.

A generous fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation enabled me to take a leave from my university in order to conduct research and writing for this book.

An earlier version of the prologue was published as a story in The Iowa Review. I thank the editor and the journal for permission to reprint the piece here.

The writing of this book coincided with the arrival of two new persons in my life, my wife JZ and our son Henry, who have both redefined my existence. In the same period, however, I also suffered a most painful loss, the sudden passing of my father, who had taught me to write when I was growing up in a small town in southeastern China. It seems that the universe has a strange way of evening out the scores.

Again, I have left for last my acknowledgment of the deepest bond, Isabelle and Ira, two tenacious kids who have now blossomed into vivacious young adults. They have given a special meaning to the title word, inseparable.

ALSO BY YUNTE HUANG

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His
Rendezvous with American History

The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature: Writings from the Mainland
in the Long Twentieth Century

Transpacific Imaginations: History, Literature, Counterpoetics

CRIBS

Transpacific Displacement: Ethnography, Translation, and Intertextual Travel
in Twentieth-Century American Literature

Shi: A Radical Reading of Chinese Poetry

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