Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

　　艾莉絲．孟若(Alice Munro)被譽為加拿大當代最傑出的短篇小說家，2009年擊敗奈波爾與喬伊斯．卡洛．奧茲等人，榮獲第三屆布克國際文學獎(Man Booker International Prize)。布克國際文學獎每兩年頒發一次，此獎候選人不分國籍，入選資格以曾發表英文作品的作家為主，第一、二屆得主分別為阿爾巴尼亞作家伊斯梅爾．卡達萊(Ismail Kadare)和尼日利亞作家齊努亞．阿奇貝(Chinua Achebe)。

　　她的作品洞悉人心，又有豐富的社會觀察，最精采的還是她獨特的看待生命方式使得她的小說能擄獲人心、屢擒大獎。《感情遊戲》獲選2001年紐約時報年度五本小說之一。孟若以她向來擅長的細膩筆觸捕捉女性心理，全書共九個短篇，主角一如孟若其他作品多是寧靜鄉間的小人物，書裡的人物遭逢自殺、阿茲海默症及歲月不再等人生問題，在命運的擺佈下如何面對自己的情感問題。孟若年屆七旬，不但沒有發出只是近黃昏的感嘆，反而賦予書中人人生智慧，這本堪稱是她最好的作品。

　　國際知名作家艾莉絲．孟若的最新短篇小說集。九篇故事立刻便帶你進入獨特的艾莉絲．孟若領域﹐在那世界裡事件一個意外的轉折或是突然記起的一件往事可能便照亮了一生的途徑。

　　個性堅強獨立一頭茸茸紅髮的女管家﹐正置身變成老處女的危險邊境﹐卻因一名少女的玩笑舉動而扭轉了未來。一個從鄉下到城市裡求學的大學生﹐在第一次造訪了姑姑在城裡的住處後﹐由那裡的老傢具而知曉了自己原來無知的家庭秘密。一名遊戲情場的男士老來由失憶的妻子突來的戀愛事件而發現情勢逆轉。一位女癌症病人得知病況好轉的消息不知如何面對﹐卻在夜色裡的浮橋上有了全新的體驗。一位女人回憶當年一個下午的狂熱肉體戀情﹐覺悟到對那事件的記憶如何支持她走過一生。

　　以簡潔平易而又細微的文字﹐寫來具強烈的真實感﹐轉折流暢好像天成﹐人物活生生走出紙面。這本《感情遊戲》帶領你到安大略省和英屬哥輪比亞﹐讓你驚訝發現在那遙遠寒冷的加拿大竟好像有你熟悉的人﹐不管是男人還是女人。

★本書中譯本《感情遊戲》由時報出版

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro come nine short stories with ＂the intimacy of a family photo album and the organic feel of real life＂ (The New York Times)

＂In Munro’s hands, as in Chekhov’s, a short story is more than big enough to hold the world--and to astonish us, again and again.＂--Chicago Tribune

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD - A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

In the nine breathtaking stories that make up this collection, Alice Munro creates narratives that loop and swerve like memory, conjuring up characters as thorny and contradictory as people we know ourselves.

The fate of a strong-minded housekeeper with a ＂frizz of reddish hair,＂ just entering the dangerous country of old-maidhood, is unintentionally (and deliciously) reversed by a teenaged girl’s practical joke. A college student visiting her aunt for the first time and recognizing the family furniture stumbles on a long-hidden secret and its meaning in her own life. An inveterate philanderer finds the tables turned when he puts his wife into an old-age home. A young cancer patient stunned by good news discovers a perfect bridge to her suddenly regained future. A woman recollecting an afternoon’s wild lovemaking with a stranger realizes how the memory of that encounter has both changed for her and sustained her through a lifetime.

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is Munro at her best--tirelessly observant, serenely free of illusion, deeply and gloriously humane.

作者簡介

艾莉絲．孟若(Alice Munro)

　　在加拿大安大略省的溫文鎮長大，進過西安大略省大學。已出版的短篇小說集包括《感情遊戲》、《快樂色調之舞》、《我一直想告訴你的一件事》、《乞丐女僕》、《木星的月亮》、《愛情進展》、《我年輕時的朋友》、《公開的秘密》、她的《短篇選集》和《一位好女子的愛》，再加上長篇小說《女孩和女人的生活》。在傑出的寫作生涯中得過許多國際文學獎，包括加拿大的總督總文學獎和格勒爾獎(Giller Prize)，和美國國家書獎的書評人獎，2009年並榮獲第三屆布克國際文學獎(Man Booker International Prize)。

Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of Western Ontario. She has published thirteen collections of stories as well as a novel, Lives of Girls and Women, and two volumes of Selected Stories. During her distinguished career she has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including three of Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards and two of its Giller Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Literary Award, England’s W. H. Smith Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Man Booker International Prize. In 2013 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, Granta, and other publications, and her collections have been translated into thirteen languages. She lives in Clinton, Ontario, near Lake Huron.