UNMARKED

The first book began with a circle on a child's forehead.

People saw that circle and placed their hopes upon it. They made it holy, dangerous, profitable and mysterious. Before Narin was old enough to understand what they wanted from him, the world had already begun turning his skin into a story.

Unmarked begins with his children.

Kanya carries the same dark circle. Her twin brother Arun bears no visible sign, yet notices what other people overlook. Their parents have promised that neither child will become a symbol. Keeping that promise will require more than love.

Narin and Araya's work has also grown beyond them. What began in conversations, clinics and communities now travels through institutions and machines. People they will never meet depend upon it. Others have found uses for it that its creators did not intend.

I wanted to follow the family into that uncertainty: to ask what children owe their parents' hopes, and what we owe the people affected by the things we make. These questions become difficult in ordinary places, over food, at a school gate, beside someone who cannot sleep.

The story belongs to those encounters. I hope you will enter them with the family and leave room for the people whose answers differ from theirs.

Stuart Corlett