Tokarczuk's third novel, Primeval and Other Times was awarded the Passport Prize in 1996 and the Koscielski Prize in 1997, which established the author as one of the leading voices in Polish letters. It is set in the mythical village of Primeval in the very heart of Poland, which is populated by eccentric, archetypal characters. The village, a microcosm of Europe, is guarded by four archangels, from whose perspective the novel chronicles the lives of Primeval's inhabitants over the course of the feral 20th century. In prose that is forceful and direct, the narrative follows Poland's tortured political history from 1914 to the contemporary era and the episodic brutality that is visited on ordinary village life. Yet Primeval and Other Times is a novel of universal dimension that does not dwell on the parochial. A stylized fable as well as epic allegory about the inexorable grind of time, the clash between modernity (the masculine) and nature (the feminine), it has been translated into most European languages. Tokarczuk has said of the novel: "I always wanted to write a book such as this. One that creates and describes a world. It is the story of a world that, like all things living, is born, develops, and then dies." Kitchens, bedrooms, childhood memories, dreams and insomnia, reminiscences, and amnesia - these are part of the existential and acoustic spaces from which the voices of Tokarczuk's tale come, her "boxes in boxes."

當代歐洲重要作傢奧爾加·托卡爾丘剋 ——

2018 年諾貝爾文學奬得主（2019 年授予），授奬詞：“她的敘事富於百科全書式的激情和想象力，代錶瞭一種跨越邊界的生命形式”；

2018 年國際布剋奬得主，波蘭文學女王；

多次獲得波蘭權威文學大奬“尼刻奬”；

獲得 2015 年歐洲 Brückepreises 國際奬。

奧爾加·托卡爾丘剋（Olga Tokarczuk）生於 1962 年，是當代波蘭國寶級作傢。畢業於華沙大學心理學係，1987 年以詩集《鏡子裏的城市》登上文壇，而後接連齣版長篇小說《書中人物旅行記》《E.E》《太古和其他的時間》《白天的房子，夜晚的房子》等，受到波蘭評論界的普遍贊揚。她善於在作品中融閤民間傳說、神話、宗教故事等元素，觀照波蘭的曆史命運與現實生活。

後浪文學即將推齣她的新作 Bieguni（英譯名Flights，中文暫譯名《雲遊》）也帶有明顯的托卡爾丘剋式的寫作特徵，通過描述一位荷蘭解剖學傢乘坐飛機的一次旅行故事，來引申到從 17 世紀到現代的一係列故事。布剋奬評委會認為，“這不是一個傳統的敘述......我們喜歡這種敘事的聲音，它從機智與快樂的惡作劇漸漸轉嚮真正的情感波瀾”。

◎ 譯者簡介

易麗君，生於 1934 年。北京外國語大學教授，博士生導師，中國作傢協會、中國翻譯協會會員，資深翻譯傢。兩次獲得波蘭總統授予的波蘭共和國十字騎士勛章，三次獲得波蘭國民教育委員會文化功勛奬章，被波蘭共和國議會授予“波蘭語言文化大使”稱號。譯有顯剋維奇曆史小說三部麯、《塔杜施先生》《費爾迪杜凱》《被禁錮的頭腦》《先人祭》等。

袁漢鎔，生於 1933 年。物理學傢，中國原子能科學研究院研究員。與易麗君閤譯顯剋維奇曆史小說三部麯等。