內容簡介
歡迎來到英國，但不是你印象中的那一個。
在這裡，一切形式的自由都將遭到「他們」抹消。
音樂、文字、圖像，所有乘載豐沛情感與思想的藝術形式都被嚴格查禁、監控。違反者遭到嚴厲管束與折磨，再不從者，被消失。
敵視個體差異，以消滅所有獨特性與個人情感為行動宗旨，「他們」的形象模糊又神秘，只知道他們同為人類，總是成群結隊…也許悄然滲透進你我之間，看似不在，卻又無處不在。
沒人知道這個神秘極權組織的來歷，或是形貌…但他們顯然知道你的。
然而，有一群藝術家，活在老大哥般的嚴密監視下，戒慎恐懼地繼續懷抱著自由思想。小說由數個短篇組成，每個故事皆由身分未知的角色講述，一個充滿審查、監控、壓迫，個體性遭到剝除的社會，以及一股形貌模糊的恐怖集體力量，這則反烏托邦警世預言出版於1977年，作者Kay Dick以簡練的語言，營造出一股來自未知、步步逼近的恐懼，也將使讀者重新思索藝術、思想及個體的獨特性，在極權之下，有多脆弱易毀。
As performed by Maxine Peake (‘visionary’): the radical dystopian classic, lost for forty years: in a nightmarish Britain, THEY are coming closer…
‘A creepily prescient tale … Insidiously horrifying!’ Margaret Atwood
‘A masterpiece of creeping dread.’ Emily St. John Mandel
This is Britain: but not as we know it.
THEY begin with a dead dog, shadowy footsteps, confiscated books. Soon the National Gallery is purged; eerie towers survey the coast; mobs stalk the countryside destroying artworks – and those who resist.
THEY capture dissidents – writers, painters, musicians, even the unmarried and childless – in military sweeps, ‘curing’ these subversives of individual identity.
Survivors gather together as cultural refugees, preserving their crafts, creating, loving and remembering. But THEY make it easier to forget …
Lost for half a century, newly introduced by Carmen Maria Machado, Kay Dick’s They (1977) is a rediscovered dystopian masterpiece of art under attack: a cry from the soul against censorship, a radical celebration of non-conformity – and a warning.
作者介紹
Kay Dick was a novelist, writer and editor. Born in London in 1915, she worked at Foyles bookshop before becoming the first female director of an English publishing house aged 26, editing authors such as George Orwell. She later reviewed for the New Statesman, Times, Spectator and Punch, as well as editing The Windmill under a pseudonym. Dick wrote five novels including They (1977), which won the South-East Arts Literature Prize but swiftly went out of print until it was recently rediscovered. She also wrote three biographies, edited anthologies and campaigned for Public Lending Right. For twenty-two years Dick lived with her long-term partner, the novelist Kathleen Farrell, in Hampstead. She later moved to Brighton, where she continued to champion fellow writers until her death in 2001.
