In Germany, Susana Fernandez and Hede Mettler of Pforzheim’s information bureau made it possible for me to visit Noor’s prison cell. Christian Milankovic of the Pforzheimer Zietung accompanied me, providing translation assistance and discussion of context.
In Canada, I was privileged to attend the Banff Centre for the Arts Writer’s Studio, a residency made possible by the Adele Wiseman scholarship fund and a travel grant from the Canada Council. Grateful thanks to Bonnie Burnard and David Carpenter, who were generous enough to read and comment on the manuscript in progress; and to Greg Hollingshead and Edna Alford, who believed it possible, sometimes more than I did. I warmly acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts during the writing of this book. Thanks very much to writer Corie Johnson for sharing research documents and speculations. Many thanks for the support of my agents, Bruce Westwood and Nicole Winstanley, who believed in this book from raw text to publication. I appreciate my editors Diane Martin and Louise Dennys whose questions challenged me to go deeper, tell the story more fully. I am indebted to John Sweet and translator Barbara Collignon for their excellent copyediting.
In England, intrepid Andy Forbes provided research assistance and companionship for my visits to museums and sites in Noor’s life. His Web site 64-Baker-Street.org describes the fifty women volunteers who worked for the SOE. Thanks to the late Group Captain Hugh Verity and to Mrs. Audrey Verity for their hospitality and candidness. My thanks to librarians of the Public Records Office at Kew and the Imperial War Museum.
In the U.S.A., many thanks to Gaston Vandermeersche for sharing vivid memories of his incarceration at the avenue Foch both in interviews and in Gaston’s War. Holocaust survivor Edel Ullenberg shared her memories of her time in Dachau; Marc Collignon his memories of life in occupied France. Werner Juretzko gave me details from his memories of incarceration in Germany. I am grateful to Nighat Kokan for her patience and meticulous research for meanings and transliterations from Urdu. The Ragdale Foundation in Illinois supported me for a five-week residency. This project was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board, with funds from the State of Wisconsin. Sincere thanks and appreciation to Tim Baker, reference librarian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., and to the librarians at the Milwaukee Public Library and Marquette University Memorial Library for their patience in filling my incessant requests for international interlibrary loans. Many thanks to Elaine Bergstrom (pen name Marie Kiraly), Beatrice Armstrong of the Alliance Française de Milwaukee, Amy Waldman, Pegi Taylor, Judy Steininger and members of my novel writers’ group, who read the manuscript at various stages. Thanks also to the Safe House espionage theme restaurant in Milwaukee, a haven for meetings and interviews.
In India, my cousin-sister Ena Singh assisted with research travel and interviews in Delhi, and commented on the manuscript. I greatly appreciated Sardar Shamsher Singh’s memories of the Princely State of Baroda (now Vadodara). Dr. Kimberley Chawla acted as Noor’s long-distance medical consultant. Many thanks also to the Indian members of Noor Inayat Khan’s extended family in Vadodara, who gave me a tour of their home, Noor’s ancestral home.
Michael Sell’s translation of the Al-Fatiha surah from Approaching the Qur’an: the Early Revelations is used by permission of White Cloud Press, Oregon. Quatrains in the epigraph are from Unseen Rain, translations of Jalal-ud-din Rumi’s poetry by Moyne and Barks. They are used by permission of Threshold Books. Lines from “Je suis seul ce soir” are from the album Les Chansons sous l’occupation: French Songs of WW II published by Arkadia Records. The line from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali was translated from Bengali by the author, and is used by permission of Macmillan India. Allusions to the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám are based on Edward Fitzgerald’s rendering into English verse, published by Collins Press, London. Quotations from the Ya Sin are from Holy Qur’Aan: Text, Translation and Commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, and are used by permission of Wordsworth Editions UK.
I owe too much to mention to my husband David Baldwin, always game to discuss, edit and burrow through his collection of espionage and history books for yet another arcane detail. He hauled and shipped research books to my writer’s residencies, and accompanied me to Paris, Pforzheim, Munich and Dachau. His patience, love, humour and understanding help me daily in every way.
SHAUNA SINGH BALDWIN was born in Montreal and grew up in India. The story that was to become her bestselling first novel, What the Body Remembers, was awarded the Saturday Night CBC Literary Prize. What the Body Remembers received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Canada and the Caribbean region). English Lessons and Other Stories received the Friends of American Writers award. The Tiger Claw was a Giller Prize Finalist in 2004. She is the co-author of A Foreign Visitor’s Survival Guide to America, and presently lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2005
Copyright © 2004 VICHAR
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Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto in 2005. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2004.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Baldwin, Shauna Singh, 1962–
The tiger claw: a novel / Shauna Singh Baldwin.
I. Title.
PS8553.A4493T44 2005 C813’.54 C2005-901306-0
eISBN: 978-0-307-36839-3
v3.0
Shauna Singh Baldwin, The Tiger Claw
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