登上亞馬遜暢銷排行榜,並入選2020布克獎
來自以色列和巴勒斯坦的兩個父親,如何拋除國籍衝突,發展真摯的友誼
改編自真人真事,2020最動人的展開
巴勒斯坦的Bassam Aramin,以色列的Rami Elhanan,兩人住的地方相距不遠,送女兒上學也都需要經過查哨站,但拿著黃色駕照,15分鐘就能抵達西岸的Rami,跟拿著綠色駕照,要花上一個半小時才能抵達目的地的Bassam,確確實實就是生活在兩個不同的世界。
然而,當Rami女兒,13歲的Smadar,不過是跟朋友們出去逛個街,卻永遠葬身在自殺式炸彈恐攻中;Bassam的10歲女兒Abir,口袋中還有一條沒吃完的糖果項鍊,卻意外死在學校外邊境警察的槍口下,兩人的生命才真正有了共通點。他們決定將這個共同的傷痛作為倡導和平的武器,試著一小步一小步地去弭平已滲透入各世代間的仇恨。
改編自作者在無國界公益組織裡遇到的兩位以巴父親真實經歷。由於深受這段故事感動,作者以無限邊形概念,將時、空、歷史、人文、自然、社會政治,揉合進傷痛、友誼、愛,願文字化為力量,承載著兩位父親的遺憾和希冀,走進世界每一位讀者的心底。
(文/博客來編譯)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A quite extraordinary novel. Colum McCann has found the form and voice to tell the most complex of stories, with an unexpected friendship between two men at its powerfully beating heart.”—Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire
From the National Book Award–winning and bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin comes an epic novel rooted in the unlikely real-life friendship between two fathers.
Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on to the schools their children attend to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate.
But their lives, however circumscribed, are upended one after the other: first, Rami’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Smadar, becomes the victim of suicide bombers; a decade later, Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, is killed by a rubber bullet. Rami and Bassam had been raised to hate one another. And yet, when they learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them. Together they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace—and with their one small act, start to permeate what has for generations seemed an impermeable conflict.
This extraordinary novel is the fruit of a seed planted when the novelist Colum McCann met the real Bassam and Rami on a trip with the non-profit organization Narrative 4. McCann was moved by their willingness to share their stories with the world, by their hope that if they could see themselves in one another, perhaps others could too.
With their blessing, and unprecedented access to their families, lives, and personal recollections, McCann began to craft Apeirogon, which uses their real-life stories to begin another—one that crosses centuries and continents, stitching together time, art, history, nature, and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. The result is an ambitious novel, crafted out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material, with these fathers’ moving story at its heart.