书名：Lincoln in the Bardo林肯在中阴界

作者：George Saunders乔治·桑德斯 

出版社名称：Bloomsbury Paperbacks 

出版时间：2018 

语种：英文 

ISBN：9781408871775 

商品尺寸：19.8 x 3.2 x 13 cm 

包装：平装 

页数：368Lincoln in the Bardo《林肯在中阴界》是美国作家乔治·桑德斯的首部长篇小说，获2017年布克奖。

小说以美国总统林肯丧子之后返回墓地的历史传闻为背景，借用佛教理念中的“中阴”一说，演绎了一个融灵异与现实于一体的历史异闻故事。小说甫一出版即被《纽约时报》《纽约客》《华盛顿邮报》《出版人周刊》等三十多家媒体重点关注和连篇报道，在全美引发热议。 在《林肯在中阴界》里，乔治·桑德斯进行了一场大胆的文体实验，文学爱好者可以在此书中感受到真正的实验和先锋文学的魅力。今日世界，小说创作渐渐失去了实验精神和先锋气质，而桑德斯在自己第1本长篇小说中就采用了如此独特的文体，颇有向当年的先锋小说致敬的意味，不负其“天才怪诞作家”的称号。 布克奖评委会主席罗拉·杨说：“这本小说的与众不同之处在于它的创新性、它独特的风格，它吊诡地召唤出了另一个世界里已死的灵魂的生命，鲜活而生动。它将丧失幼子的亚伯拉罕·林肯的私人之痛与美国内战的更广大的历史动乱并置……《林肯在中阴界》既是植根于历史的，又是玩味历史的，它探讨了关于‘同情’的故事和意义。” 媒体评论： “这本书是一部国家鬼故事，一次奇异有趣、充满怜悯的降神会”——《华盛顿邮报》 “桑德斯以这本书进入了林肯的头脑。”——《纽约客》 “这本书读起来不像小说，倒更像是莎士比亚在21世纪写的悲剧。”——《波士顿环球》 WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 A STORY OF LOVE AFTER DEATH “A masterpiece”  —Zadie Smith “Extraordinary” —Daily Mail “Breathtaking”  —Observer “A tour de force” —The Sunday Times The extraordinary first novel by the bestselling, Folio Prize-winning, National Book Award-shortlisted George Saunders, about Abraham Lincoln and the death of his eleven year old son, Willie, at the dawn of the Civil War Review “A luminous feat of generosity and humanism.”  — Colson Whitehead,The New York Times Book Review   “An extended national ghost story... As anyone who knows Saunders’s work would expect, his first novel is a strikingly original production.”  —The Washington Post   “Saunders’s beautifully realized portrait of Lincoln . . . attests to the author’s own fruitful transition from the short story to the long-distance form of the novel.”  — Michiko Kakutani,TheNew York Times   “Devastatingly moving.”  —People   “Profound, funny and vital... the work of a great writer.”  —ChicagoTribune   “Heartbreaking and hilarious... For all its divine comedy,Lincoln in the Bardois also deep and moving.”  —USAToday   “Along with the wonderfully bizarre, empathy abounds inLincoln in the Bardo.”  —Time   “There are moments that are almost transcendentally beautiful, that will come back to you on the edge of sleep. And it is told in beautifully realized voices, rolling out with precision or with stream-of-consciousness drawl.”  —NPR   “Lincoln in the Bardois part historical novel, part carnivalesque phantasmagoria. It may well be the most strange and brilliant book you’ll read this year.”  —FinancialTimes “Ingenious... Saunders—well on his way toward becoming a twenty-first-century Twain—crafts an American patchwork of love and loss, giving shape to our foundational sorrows.”  —VogueLincoln in the Bardo《林肯在中阴界》

故事始于1862年的一个夜晚，林肯十一岁的儿子威利因伤寒症去世，而美国内战战事正紧，外忧内患夹击之下的总统偷偷溜去公墓，揭开已经合上的棺材，伸出双手去拥抱儿子已经死去的身体。在他的温柔爱抚下，那些困在中阴界的不安灵魂纷纷受到感召从坟墓中升起，他们感到“被这样充满爱意地触摸，就像还（他还活着）……”而林肯的儿子小威利看到这幕景象，还不知道自己已经死去。作者桑德斯自称是佛教徒，他将佛教“中阴界”的概念置入小说中，描写这些处在中阴界、不知自己已死的鬼魂为何迟迟不愿意离去。

The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body. From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of realism, entering a thrilling, supernatural domain both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself trapped in a transitional realm—called, in Tibetan tradition, the bardo—and as ghosts mingle, squabble, gripe and commiserate, and stony tendrils creep towards the boy, a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul. Unfolding over a single night,Lincoln in the Bardois written with George Saunders’ inimitable humour, pathos and grace. Here he invents an exhilarating new form, and is confirmed as one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Deploying a theatrical, kaleidoscopic panoply of voices—living and dead, historical and fictional—Lincoln in the Bardoposes a timeless question: how do we live and love when we know that everything we hold dear must end?

乔治·桑德斯，美国小说家。2017年9月13日，凭借小说《林肯在中阴界》入围2017英国布克奖短名单。

伦敦当地时间10月17日晚8时，现年59岁的美国作家乔治·桑德斯（George Saunders）凭借《林肯在中阴界》（Lincoln in the Bardo）获得2017年英国布克奖。这也是2014年布克奖规则开放以来美国作家第2次获得布克奖，上一次是去年得奖的保罗·比第（Paul Beatty）。 1996年，他出版了首部短篇小说集《衰退时期的内战疆土》（Civil War Land in Bad Decline）。2006年他获得了麦克阿瑟天才奖和古根海姆学者奖；2014年，他凭借小说集《12月10日》成为首届弗里奥文学奖得主。 George Saundersis the author of eight books, including the story collections Pastoralia and Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2006 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2013 he was awarded the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and was included in Time’s list of the one hundred most influential people in the world. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.

XXI. 

Mouth at the worm’s ear, Father said: We have loved each other well, dear Willie, but now, for reasons we cannot understand, that bond has been broken. But our bond can never be broken. As long as I live, you will always be with me, child. Then let out a sob Dear Father crying That was hard to see And no matter how I patted & kissed & made to console, it did no You were a joy, he said. Please know that. Know that you were a joy. To us. Every minute, every season, you were a—you did a good job. A good job of being a pleasure to know. Saying all this to the worm! How I wished him to say it to me And to feel his eyes on me So I thought, all right, by Jim, I will get him to see me And in I went It was no bother at all Say, it felt all right Like I somewhat belonged in In there, held so tight, I was now partly also in Father And could know exactly what he was Could feel the way his long legs lay How it is to have a beard Taste coffee in the mouth and, though not thinking in words exactly, knew that the feel of him in my arms has done me good. It has. Is this wrong? Unholy? No, no, he is mine, he is ours, and therefore I must be, in that sense, a god in this; where he is concerned I may decide what is best. And I believe this has done me good. I remember him. Again. Who he was. I had forgotten some- what already. But here: his exact proportions, his suit smelling of him still, his forelock between my fingers, the heft of him familiar from when he would fall asleep in the parlor and I would carry him up to— It has done me good. I believe it has. It is secret. A bit of secret weakness, that shores me up; in shoring me up, it makes it more likely that I shall do my duty in other matters; it hastens the end of this period of weakness; it harms no one; therefore, it is not wrong, and I shall take away from here this resolve: I may return as often as I like, telling no one, accepting whatever help it may bring me, until it helps me no more. Then Father touched his head to mine. Dear boy, he said, I will come again. That is a promise.