內容簡介
《微物之神》
《好書推薦》【盤根錯節的愛與恨，在禁錮的體制上靜靜蔓生】The God of Small Things(中譯：微物之神), a novel by Arundhati Roy
原本為電視節目和電影寫劇本的Arundhati Roy，在36歲那年發表了她的第一本小說《The God of Small Things》，沒想到立即在1997年，以新人作家之姿一舉奪得英國布克獎，這樣的成功不僅文壇震驚，頗具爭議的內容也引發印度政府當局抨擊她的小說。她花了將近4年的時間撰寫小說，內容有極大部份受到她在印度南部的阿耶瑪南(Aymanam)村所度過的童年影響，被認為是一本具有半自傳性質的小說。
《The God of Small Things》的故事背景包含龐大的印度社會和文化描寫，以及家族間親情與愛情的錯綜關係。故事中心以一對雙胞胎Estha和Rahel為主，以及圍繞在他們身旁的親人與手足，每一位家人的故事環環相扣，因果相應，從對白中仔細觀察，不難發現作者精心為未來劇情所埋下的伏筆。
故事從1969年的一樁事件開始，從遠方前來探親的表妹蘇菲，忽然意外死亡，頓時讓整個家族陷入巨大且混亂的漩渦中，家人間隱藏多年的猜疑、妒忌終於爆發，導致一個又一個的悲劇接連發生，也讓Estha和Rahel的童年蒙上陰影，原本形影不離的雙胞胎，因家族崩解而被拆散，走向各自不同的人生，卻又懷抱著失去另一個自己的痛。
全書雖然囊括許多種議題探討，包含印度傳統社會中男尊女卑的問題、種性制度的嚴明階級以及國家體制對個人的壓迫，但作者仍選了一種最直接的方式去訴說，也就是「愛」。
故事裡我們可以發現很多種愛，無論是禁忌亂倫之愛、跨越種姓階級的愛、遙遙無望的愛，或是無法言明卻也一生的愛，這些瑣碎且微小的情感思緒，或許在高聳巨大的社會體制中被隱藏、被迫噤聲，但卻從不曾消失。它們樣貌不同但互相影響，如被打散的拼圖，一塊一塊地，隨著作者纖細的文字和敘述，讓我們看見印度，這個美麗、古老、神祕的國度，她真實的面貌。
Arundhati Roy十分關注國際政治及文化議題，包括支持喀什米爾脫離印度的獨立運動，也曾遭印度當局關切。近年發表多篇關於政治及文化的文章，已被企鵝出版社分為五冊出版，她正在籌備她的第二本小說，預計將於明年年中問世。
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An affluent Indian family is forever changed by one fateful day in 1969, from the author of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
“[The God of Small Things] offers such magic, mystery, and sadness that, literally, this reader turned the last page and decided to reread it. Immediately. It’s that haunting.”—USA Today
Compared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s modern classic is equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevocably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. It is an event that will lead to an illicit liaison and tragedies accidental and intentional, exposing “big things [that] lurk unsaid” in a country drifting dangerously toward unrest.
作者介紹
Arundhati Roy is the author of a number of books, including The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997 and has been translated into more than forty languages. She was born in 1959 in Shillong, India, and studied architecture in Delhi, where she now lives. She has also written several non-fiction books, including Field Notes on Democracy, Walking with the Comrades, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, The End of Imagination, and most recently Things That Can and Cannot Be Said, co-authored with John Cusack. Roy is the recipient of the 2002 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Prize, the 2011 Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Writing, and the 2015 Ambedkar Sudar award.
