The Rooster House: A Ukrainian Family Memoir | 誠品線上

The Rooster House: A Ukrainian Family Memoir

內容簡介

內容簡介 ✰ 紐約時報、衛報專文報導 ✰祖母的定情地哈爾科夫、父親過去的工作地點頓內茨克、母女一同買櫻桃樹的馬里烏波爾⋯烏克蘭裔記者貝林姆的人生地標已淪為戰場，但她仍決定返鄉揭開曾祖父日記中的謎題⋯---------------------------「我們家族應該對蘇聯感恩戴德。」「我一向覺得懷舊是種病，對蘇聯的懷舊更是病入膏肓。」當俄烏關係白熱化，一場伯侄之間的意識形態之爭，引領作者回到烏克蘭外婆家的櫻桃園，牽引出一個家族橫跨四代紛雜的歷史記憶與認同★未出版即全球銷售16國版權★★The Bookseller 當月選書★★《鷹與心的追尋》作者海倫．麥克唐納推薦★如今還在進行式的俄烏戰爭，近可回推至2014年俄羅斯對克里米亞的軍事行動，遠則可溯及俄羅斯及烏克蘭糾纏長達百年以上的歷史。也就是在俄羅斯併吞克里米亞那一個歷史時刻，作者維多利亞‧貝林姆的電腦螢幕閃現著一則訊息：「我們家族應該對蘇聯感恩戴德。」而這訊息來自她曾因蒐藏披頭四唱片，在蘇聯統治烏克蘭時期鋃鐺入獄的伯父。出生於烏克蘭的兩個世代面對同一場戰爭，卻有著截然不同的兩種詮釋。對作者而言，蘇聯象徵的是車諾比核災、專制統治與大饑荒。對她的伯父而言，蘇聯不僅是核工程與航空科技的先鋒，更是保護烏克蘭免於納粹統治的軍事強權。這場由著政治立場相左的爭執，以及曾祖父日記記下的一名失蹤家族成員，帶領作者回到離開十年以上的故鄉波爾塔瓦的櫻桃園。在塵封的照片、日記及藏書中，以曾祖父母所經歷的歷史事件為本，貝林姆走訪烏克蘭社會主義時代的祕密警察單位「公雞之家」、各地檔案室、博物館及祖厝，試圖拼湊不斷消失中的家族歷史，解開四個世代面對政權轉移的立場歧異及糾結。「哀悼一個地方，比哀悼一個人還難。」曾經對作者而言，俄軍侵略克里米亞的新聞畫面，彷彿存在於老舊電影的灰色畫面。隨著一邊協助農務一邊穿梭於以列寧命名的無數街道，在破碎凌亂的檔案與歧異紛亂的歷史認同中，作者以一個家族的故事折射出一個「邊境之國」的歷史處境，並且在進行式的戰爭中，找回未經戰火蹂躪的烏克蘭，及一個家族重新找回連結的可能。本中文書介出自臉譜出版社《公雞之家: 從被消失的家族成員追溯一個烏克蘭家族的百年離合, 在尋找自我的碎片中回望邊境之國的記憶與哀愁》In the Ukrainian city of Poltava stands a building known as the Rooster House, an elegant mansion with two voluptuous red roosters flanking the door. It doesn't look horrifying. And yet, when Victoria was a girl growing up in the 1980s, her great-grandmother would take pains to avoid walking past it.In 2014, while the Russian state was annexing Crimea, Victoria visited her grandmother in Bereh, the hamlet near Poltava that was a haven in her childhood. Just before the trip she came across her great-grandfather's diary, one page scored deep with the single line: 'Brother Nikodim, vanished in the 1930s fighting for a free Ukraine.' She had never heard of this uncle and no one - especially her grandmother - seemed willing to tell her about him.Victoria became obsessed with recovering his story, and returned to her birth country again and again in pursuit of it. In the end, after years of sifting through Ukraine's post-Soviet bureaucracy, after travelling to tiny, ruined villages and speaking to the wizened survivors of that era, her winding search took her back to the place she had always known it would - to the Rooster House, and the dark truths contained in its basement.Inspired by the author's love for her family, and peopled by warm, larger-than-life characters who jostle alongside the ghostly absences of others, The Rooster House is at once a riveting journey into the complex history of a wounded country and a profoundly moving tribute to hope and the refusal of despair.

作者介紹

作者介紹 Victoria Belim is a writer, journalist, and translator of Persian literature and poetry. She has a column in the Financial Times and her writing on culture and lifestyle topics has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, ELLE, Red Magazine, and Marie Claire. She speaks eighteen languages, including Japanese, Turkish, and Indonesian. Born in Ukraine, Victoria grew up in the USA and now lives in Brussels, Belgium.

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