"Strait is the Gate," first published in 1909 in France as "La Porte etroite," is a novel about the failure of love in the face of the narrowness of the moral philosophy of Protestantism. --- Andr Gide (1869 - 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career spanned from the symbolist movement to the advent of anticolonialism in between the two World Wars. Gide's work can be seen as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritan constraints, and gravitates around his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of how to be fully oneself, without at the same time betraying one's values... --- "For Gide was very different from the picture most people had of him. He was the very reverse of an aesthete, and, as a writer, had nothing in common with the doctrine of art for art's sake. He was a man deeply involved in a specific struggle, a specific fight, who never wrote a line which he did not think was of service to the cause he had at heart." (Francois Mauriac)

安德烈·纪德（1869-1951），法国作家，出生于巴黎，一八九一年发表第一部小说，开始写作生涯。一九〇九年参与创办《新法兰西评论》。一九四七年获诺贝尔文学奖。代表作有小说《背德者》、《窄门》、《田园交响曲》、《梵蒂冈地窖》、《伪币制造者》，散文《地粮》、《刚果之行》等。

纪德是现代西方文学史、思想史上的重要人物。他广泛关注宗教、爱情、家庭、性、政治等各类问题，热烈歌吟解放与自由，以赤诚之心去担当人性中的最大可能。他是时代的见证人，更是时代的创造者，法国文坛的后起之秀如萨特、加缪等，都曾将纪德视为自己的精神导师。同时，纪德也称得上二十世纪最具争议、最令人费解的作家之一。他的“纵情”、他的“颠覆”，曾一度使他“声名狼藉”；但另一方面，他内心中同样真挚的是一种对于“神圣生活”的需要的肯定。他对同性恋的辩护、在道德伦理上的特别主张至今仍是人们关注和讨论的焦点。

译者桂裕芳（1930- ），湖北武汉人。北京大学法语系教授，著名翻译家。获法国教育部颁发的教育勋章。译著主要有：普鲁斯特《追忆似水年华》（第二卷）、雨果《九三年》、萨特《呕吐》、布托《变》、莫里亚克《爱的荒漠》等。