Acknowledgements
This book is the crowning achievement of an eight-year academic journey that started in September 2011, when I returned to SOAS as a newly enrolled PhD candidate in the Department of China and Inner Asia.
Over the past eight years, many people have helped me in various ways and to all of them I wish to extend my deepest and most heartfelt thanks, as follows.
First of all, I wish to thank my main supervisor Dr Rossella Ferrari for her first-class supervision, which included unwavering intellectual and moral support, rigorous knowledge and, most importantly, an unlimited patience when reviewing all drafts of this work, even during her maternity leave. I also wish to thank the other members of my supervisory committee, Dr Cosima Bruno and Dr Xiaoning Lu for their advice and guidance. I am also grateful to my doctoral examiners, Prof. Miriam Leonard and Prof. Natascha Gentz who provided insightful comments on the earliest complete version of the present work.
Since 2012, I have had the chance to participate in several academic conferences and workshops where I could present parts of this project, receiving constructive criticism and advice and making new friends and acquaintances. I thank all of them. Moreover, I thank the SOAS Faculty of Languages and Cultures and the SOAS Doctoral School for providing conference allowance every year of my doctoral degree.
Still within the scholarly realm, I owe an immense debt of gratitude to Dr Mary Mazzilli, whom I met during my MA studies at SOAS in 2009–2010 and who ignited my interest in the study of Gao Xingjian’s plays. Over the years, she has continued to be a great source of inspiration to me, as well as a precious mentor, colleague and friend. Furthermore, special thanks go to Prof. David Der-wei Wang who offered some very helpful suggestions during a master class at the University of Cambridge in May 2014.
Another big thank you goes to my lovely colleagues at UCL Library Services where I have been working since February 2012. They witnessed and shaped my professional growth, showing support for my career ideas and facilitating my working life from what has been and is a second home to me. Particularly, I thank my line manager Robert Pinckney for his words of encouragement and invaluable support.
I also would like to thank Dr Qin Higley and the editors of the Brill Sinica Leidensia Series, Prof. Barend J. ter Haar and Prof. Maghiel van Crevel, for this wonderful opportunity, as well as the anonymous readers of my manuscript. A final acknowledgment must go to Mr Thomas Smith for his professionalism and accuracy in proofreading and copyediting every single word of this book.
Among my friends, I would like to thank my former PhD colleagues Hannah Erlwein and Angela Becher for their company and crucial emotional support in some very difficult moments. Furthermore, I thank Francesca Agrò, Paola Corvinelli, Silvia Toro, Silvia Picchiarelli and Emma Duester for putting up with me for all these years. Special thanks to Mariana Münning in whose company I began to tread the path of academic life in London.
Finally, I cannot thank enough my family, in particular my parents Ivano Fusini and Rosa Schiano for giving me the opportunity to pursue my dreams and my brother Lorenzo for believing in my abilities.
Above all, I give thanks and praise to God whose wisdom, strength and guidance helped me in writing and completing this book.