I’LL TELL ME MA: A BELFAST MEMOIR

Book ID/图书代码： 11320008B28941

English Summary/英文概要： Local rather than international, the dramas and privations described in this memoir are not the stuff of headlines. This is the story of an ordinary boy growing up in Belfast after the war; an ordinary boy who would go on to become world-famous as a hostage in Beirut and author of the extraordinary testimony of imprisonment and survival that was "An Evil Cradling". In this remarkable and equally moving act of retrieval, Brian Keenan has captured the vanished world of 1950s Belfast in all its vivid vernacular and grey, post-war austerity. This is a time of licorice and Airfix models, pigeon-fanciers, street vendors selling coal and bleach and herring, street-fighters with lions on chains - a city where westerns were showing every afternoon at the Picture Theatre, where livestock was still herded onto the docks and the shipyards flourished. It was also a place of ghosts: the plague dead in the cemeteries, the family dead in the scrapbooks, a witch’s box discovered under the stairs, the giant street bonfires every 12th of July to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne. By the end of the book, after his father’s death and his mother’s Alzheimer’s, Belfast itself becomes a ghost city to Brian Keenan, the boy who leaves to become a man. Rich in detail and atmosphere, "I’ll Tell Me Ma" is an affectionate story of a disaffected childhood. At the centre is a shy, self-conscious boy of unusual moral integrity; a boy puzzled by religion and sectarianism, in love with books and music and full of curiosity about the world outside. A book of reclamation, "I’ll Tell Me Ma" is also a coming-to-terms with the past: a resounding, thrilling record of redemption.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 本书回忆录中事件并非名人大事，而是具有乡土意味的个人回忆。书中讲述了一个二战后在北爱尔兰首府贝尔法斯特长大的小男孩，一个举世皆知的贝鲁特战俘，《罪恶的摇篮》一书作者。作者生动逼真地再现了战后贝尔法斯特的阴郁而严酷的生活。一个存在于战争阴影下的城市，那儿游荡着孤魂野鬼，空气中弥漫着诡异阴森的气息。男孩的父母死后，他离开了这座给他童年蒙上阴影的城市。本书内容丰富，感情饱满，一个愤懑的孩童亲自讲述了感人的故事。一个喜爱读书和音乐，对世界充满好奇的儿童。童年时经历了宗教的侵染，却依然保持了高尚品德。本书不仅是一部再现过去的回忆录，更是一部发人深省的救赎录。(SJN)

Awards/获奖情况：

About the Author/作者介绍： Brian Keenan was born in Belfast in 1951. An Evil Cradling is the story of his four years’ captivity in Beirut and is recognized as a non-fiction classic. He is also the author of the novel, Turlough and two travel books, Between Extremes (with John McCarthy) andFour Quarters Of Light. He lives with his family outside Dublin.

本书作者布莱恩·基楠，1951年生于贝尔法斯特，现居都柏林外郊。写实经典《罪恶的摇篮》作者，此书描写了他在贝鲁特四年的战俘生活。著有《两极之间》等多部游记小说。

Format:PROOF

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：

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