书名：A Lesson Before Dying我的灵魂永不下跪：临刑前的最后一课

难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数750L

作者：Ernest J. Gaines

出版社名称：Vintage

出版时间：1994

语种：英文

ISBN：9780375702709

商品尺寸：13 x 1.4 x 20.1 cm

包装：平装

页数：256 （以实物为准）

★诺贝尔文学奖提名，普利策奖提名，奥普拉读书俱乐部选书，美国青少年图书馆协会年度好书。

★美国国家书评小说奖桂冠，全美中学文学课指定读物，全美大学英语系学生不可不读的书，销售总量突破250万册。 ★敲击人心的经典之作，感动犹如《相助》，挚情媲美《杀死一只知更鸟》。 ★传媒女王奥普拉振奋推荐！三代美国人集体动容！ ★改编电影《死亡记事》，赢得两座艾美大奖。 本书A Lesson Before Dying《我的灵魂永不下跪：临刑前的最后一课》是美国黑人作家恩尼斯特·盖恩斯触动人心的隽永之作。尊严对于将死之人意味着什么？个体的信念如何影响他人？盖恩斯通过本书告诉读者，要听从内心的呼唤，寻找生命中的光亮。再绝望的地方，也有一线希望！ 媒体评论：“这是一部大气磅礴而又绵密动人的杰作，问世之初即成为公众阅读的盛宴、辩者讨论的话题，是一部不朽的经典之作。”——《芝加哥论坛报》 “本书进一步确立了恩尼斯特·盖恩斯美国文坛重要作家的地位。”——《波士顿环球日报》 “震撼心灵、发自肺腑的感言，不同凡响的经典作品。”——《每日新闻》 “沉静率真的小说，将我们带回到一个喧嚣的年代，并接受一场洗礼。”——《旧金山纪事报》“非常感人，字字珠玑，描绘出来的是一幅时代特点鲜明、地域色彩浓艳的艺术壮锦。”——《洛杉矶时报》“一部关于种族歧视与守望相助的获奖经典，弥足珍贵的一课。”——《华盛顿邮报·图书世界》

“盖恩斯用浓墨重彩的笔触，描绘出美国南方蔗园小镇的风情，一部感人肺腑、升华心灵的杰作。”——《卫报》“一掬美国南方黑人的辛酸泪，经盖恩斯娓娓道来，读之犹闻痛者的呻吟，如历灵魂的洗礼。”——《泰晤士报》“这部小说以优雅的笔调、哀伤的情怀，打动了世人的心，作者没有置身事外，故作抚昔伤逝之思；而是直面书中人物，字字泣血，句句垂泪，如一曲凄婉的民谣，韵味绵长、悲切难掩。”——《独立报》 From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is unwitting party to a liquor store shootout in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting — and defying — the expected. Ernest J. Gaines brings to this novel the same rich sense of place, the same deep understanding of the human psyche, and the same compassion for a people and their struggle that have informed his previous, highly praised works of fiction. Review"This majestic, moving novel is an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives." —Chicago Tribune"A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer." —Boston Globe"Enormously moving. . . . Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." —Los Angeles Times "A quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place we've been before to impart a lesson for living." —San Francisco Chronicle

强者自救，圣者渡人，人的高贵，在于灵魂的自由！

这是一个关于生与死、罪与罚、黑与白、恩与爱、尊严与歧视的故事。20世纪40年代的路易斯安那州，21岁的黑人杰弗逊不幸卷入一桩小酒店枪击事件，三名当事人当场死亡。作为案发现场的幸存者，他被白人指控蓄意谋杀并被判处死刑。大学毕业后回归故里、执教当地于农场小学的格兰特·魏金斯不甘偏处一隅、碌碌无为的现状，去留无定，过着极度苦闷彷徨的日子。他的姨姥和杰弗逊的教母希望他探视身陷囹圄的杰弗逊，用他的智慧和人格重塑杰弗逊懵懂无知、自轻自贱的灵魂，为杰弗逊上临刑前的zui后一堂课：要带着尊严与骄傲而死。 自甘堕落的杰弗逊能否找回生而为人的价值？矛盾而挣扎的格兰特如何寻得救赎的意义？这是一堂教导，更是一次领悟。美国南方社会的种族歧视，无知少年的受挫人生，黑人教师的人生抱负，交织出珍贵的生命情谊与人性光辉。盖恩斯以浓厚的乡土情怀，对生命奋斗的深挚同情，写出了一部历久弥新的传世经典。 A Lesson Before Dying is about the ways in which people insist on declaring the value of their lives in a time and place in which those lives count for nothing. It is about the ways in which the imprisoned may find freedom even in the moment of their death. As such, Gaines's novel transcends its minutely evoked circumstances to address the basic predicament of what it is to be a human being, a creature striving for dignity in a universe that often denies it.

恩尼斯特·盖恩斯，当代美国黑人作家。他在40余年的创作生涯里，先后有8部作品问世，美国评论家埃尔文·奥伯特认为盖恩斯对美国南方社会的理解甚至比福克纳还深刻。他的作品被译为多种语言，其中有4部作品改编为电影、电视连续剧。盖恩斯的其他作品还包括《老人的聚会》、《珍·彼特曼小姐自传》、《爱与尘》等。《我的灵魂永不下跪》是盖恩斯受读者推崇的作品，不仅在销售上获得肯定，更荣获1993年美国国家书评小说奖首奖等诸多奖项，改编HBO电影《死亡记事》，抱得两座艾美奖。盖恩斯获奖无数，曾获得诺贝尔文学奖提名，由法国政府授封为艺术与文学骑士，荣膺路州年度人文学者。

Ernest Gaines was born on a plantation in Pointe Coupée Parish near New Roads, Louisiana, which is the Bayonne of all his fictional works. He is writer-in-residence emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1993 Gaines received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his lifetime achievements. In 1996 he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France’s highest decorations. He and his wife, Dianne, live in Oscar, Louisiana.

I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still, I was there. I was there as much as anyone else was there. Either I sat behind my aunt and his godmother or I sat beside them. Both are large women, but his godmother is larger. She is of average height, five four, five five, but weighs nearly two hundred pounds. Once she and my aunt had found their places--two rows behind the table where he sat with his court-appointed attorney--his godmother became as immobile as a great stone or as one of our oak or cypress stumps. She never got up once to get water or go to the bathroom down in the basement. She just sat there staring at the boy's clean-cropped head where he sat at the front table with his lawyer. Even after he had gone to await the jurors' verdict, her eyes remained in that one direction. She heard nothing said in the courtroom. Not by the prosecutor, not by the defense attorney, not by my aunt. (Oh, yes, she did hear one word--one word, for sure: "hog.") It was my aunt whose eyes followed the prosecutor as he moved from one side of the courtroom to the other, pounding his fist into the palm of his hand, pounding the table where his papers lay, pounding the rail that separated the jurors from the rest of the courtroom. It was my aunt who followed his every move, not his godmother. She was not even listening. She had gotten tired of listening, She knew, as we all knew, what the outcome would be. A white man had been killed during a robbery, and though two of the robbers had been killed on the spot, one had been captured, and he, too, would have to die. Though he told them no, he had nothing to do with it, that he was on his way to the White Rabbit Bar and Lounge when Brother and Bear drove up beside him and offered him a ride. After he got into the car, they asked him if he had any money. When he told them he didn't have a solitary dime, it was then that Brother and Bear started talking credit, saying that old Gropé should not mind crediting them a pint since he knew them well, and he knew that the grinding season was coming soon, and they would be able to pay him back then. 

The store was empty, except for the old storekeeper, Alcee Gropé, who sat on a stool behind the counter. He spoke first. He asked Jefferson about his godmother. Jefferson told him his nannan was all right. Old Gropé nodded his head. "You tell her for me I say hello," he told Jefferson. He looked at Brother and Bear. But he didn't like them. He didn't trust them. Jefferson could see that in his face. "Do for you boys?" he asked. "A bottle of that Apple White, there, Mr. Gropé" Bear said. Old Gropé got the bottle off the shelf, but he did not set it on the counter. He could see that the boys had already been drinking, and he became suspicious. "You boys got money?" he asked. Brother and Bear spread out all the money they had in their pockets on top of the counter. Old Gropé counted it with his eyes. "That's not enough," he said. "Come on, now, Mr. Gropé," they pleaded with him. "You know you go'n get your money soon as grinding start." "No," he said. "Money is slack everywhere. You bring the money, you get your wine." He turned to put the bottle back on the shelf. One of the boys, the one called Bear, started around the counter."You, stop there," Gropé told him. "Go back." Bear had been drinking, and his eyes were glossy, he walked unsteadily, grinning all the time as he continued around the counter. "Go back," Gropé told him. "I mean, the last time now--go back." Bear continued. Gropé moved quickly toward the cash register, where he withdrew a revolver and started shooting. Soon there was shooting from another direction. When it was quiet again, Bear, Gropé, and Brother were all down on the floor, and only Jefferson was standing.