不适之地 – Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

《不适之地》是孟加拉裔美国女作家茱帕·拉希里的短篇小说集。2008年4月出版后即登上《纽约时报》畅销书榜小说类第一名，并在当年的弗兰克·奥康纳国际短篇小说奖评选中，直接从初选名单中被授予大奖，被评委们称为好到完全没有“真正的对手”。　　《不适之地》围绕爱情、亲情和友情，共分五个短篇和一个三部曲式的中篇，主要讲述第二代印度移民在欧美社会的生活。他们面对的问题不止是两种文化间的选择与融合，还有他们与父辈第一代移民之间因观念不同引发的矛盾和心结。从孟买到西雅图，从加尔各答到罗马，他们感受着对爱情的感动，深处异乡的不适，婚姻的考验和同侪间的战争，带着孤独与不安、欢喜与悲伤在异国他乡生长并向下扎根。

From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.

In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.

Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers.

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