The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

　　透過一個令人難以忘懷的家庭所經歷的重重試煉，以二十世紀美國黑人往北移居之「大遷徙」為背景，梅錫斯娓娓道來一群孩童的故事，有愛有恨，還有新美國的應允。

　　一九二三年，十五歲的海蒂‧薛珀逃離喬治亞，到費城定居，望能建立更好的生活。卻嫁給了一個除了挫折以外什麼都不能給她的男人，無助地看著頭胎的雙生兒死於幾分錢就能預防的疾病。海蒂又生了九個孩子，以過人的勇氣和毅力養大，但他們從她身上得不到一絲極為渴望的溫柔。她發誓要讓孩子們有能力面對成人後一定會碰到的悲慘困境，去面對不會愛他們、一點也不和善的世界。本書分成十二條清楚易懂的支線，訴說一名母親無比的勇氣，以及美國一路走來的模樣。

　　梅錫斯的《海蒂十二族》優美而沉重，從頭到尾都與人驚嘆──讀來令人既愉快又悲痛，更沒想到還能讓人感到振奮，熊熊燃燒著生命力。梅錫斯初試啼聲，便引人入勝，扣人心弦，刻畫出主人翁頑強抵抗無法克服的逆境，一而再再而三地描繪出人類精神的強韌和驅動美國夢的力量，在現代小說界宣示了重要的新代言人即將登場。

　　The arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

　　A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family.

　　In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

　　Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last — glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream.

　　★本書中譯版《海蒂十二族》由木馬文化出版。

作者簡介

阿雅娜‧梅錫斯（Ayana Mathis）

　　梅錫斯是美國素負盛名的愛荷華創作碩士班畢業生，還獲得了哥白尼獎學金，這個獎學金之前曾提攜了麥可．康寧漢等無數文壇要角。在麥可．翁達傑的文學經紀人艾倫．勒雯（Ellen Levine, 也是 Russell Banks 的經紀人）推薦下，《海蒂十二族》迅速被美國 Knopf、英國 Hutchinson 和加拿大 HarperCollins 出版社 pre-empt 買下版權，目前已有保羅．哈丁（Paul Harding）和瑪莉蓮．羅賓遜兩位普立茲獎得主撰文推薦。

　　Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is her first novel.