Authors: Ranjini Iyer
The Colossus (22 page)
Ranjini Iyer has been |  |
This book wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the fascinating stories I heard growing up about Bayer AG from my father, Dr. S. Ramanathan Iyer. He worked for Bayer in Germany in the seventies and later in India. Bayer’s Nazi connections, their connection to I.G. Farben, their powerful omnipresence in Germany, and more were all facts that stayed with me over the years.
The book
Aspirin
by Jeffrey Diarmuid added fuel to those memories, and the seed for
The Colossus
was sown.
Thank you, dear brother Ravi, for reading early drafts of the novel and providing me with much encouragement to keep going. To Madeleine and Amy, thanks for reading the first draft of the book. Thank you to my cousin Smridula Hariharan for working with me on the early scientific explanations for the bacteria in the Indus pill.
Amma, I am so grateful to you for being there when I needed you most, for willingly babysitting for hours while I wrestled with my manuscript and mainly, for your constant and calming presence.
To Renni Browne of The Editorial Department, thank you for teaching me how to edit a manuscript. Thanks to Hillel Black for his notes. To my editors Jillian Ports and Tequan Wright, I am most grateful.
Colossus
is a tight, fast-moving story thanks to you. Zach Vinson, thank you for a crisp line edit.
A great many thanks to Robert Astle, my former agent and now publisher. For your patience, your insights, and encouragement. And
also for your kind indulgence/blind eye to my occasional email tantrum. Thank you for keeping the faith all these years.
Thank you Danielle Fiorella for a smashing cover design.
And finally, my best friend, strongest and most insightful critic—my husband, Amol, this book is for you. Thank you for reading countless drafts of this book with minimal complaint, all the while saying how poorly qualified you were to offer me meaningful feedback and yet managing to ppssrovide me with some wonderful and brave pointers. Without you, there would be no inspiration, no writing, and certainly no
Colossus
.