"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy -- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling-- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors--yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness. Angela's Ashes , imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.

弗蘭剋•邁考特(Frank McCourt)

美國著名作傢，教師，普利策文學奬獲得者。主要作品有《安琪拉的灰燼》、《就是這兒》、《教書匠》等。

1930年齣生於美國紐約。作為愛爾蘭裔，4歲舉傢遷迴愛爾蘭，在貧民窟度過苦難的童年。13歲輟學。19歲心懷“美國夢”隻身重返紐約，做過酒店勤雜工、碼頭工人、打字員，當過兵，後來考入大學，畢業後成為一名教師，前後教過12000多名學生，曾榮獲美國教育界的最高榮譽稱號“全美最佳教師”，被譽為“老師中的老師”。1987年退休，開始正式寫作。2006年，被授予“約翰•杜威教育奬”。2009年6月，病逝於紐約。

1996年，處女作《安琪拉的灰燼》齣版，在幾乎沒有宣傳的情況下，靠著讀者口口相傳，登上《紐約時報》暢銷書榜第1名，並創下在榜長達117周的紀錄，一舉獲得普利策文學奬、全美書評奬、洛杉磯時報圖書奬、美國年度好書奬等各大重要奬項。1999年，“安琪拉的灰燼2”《就是這兒》齣版。2005年，“安琪拉的灰燼3”《教書匠》齣版。係列圖書産生重大影響，正如《紐約時報》所評：“堪稱多年來兼具全球影響和人文風格的成長小說傑作！”