MY FATHER’S FORTUNE: A LIFE
Book ID/图书代码： 05380010B36667
English Summary/英文概要： MY FATHER’S FORTUNE is a funny and touching memoir from Michael Frayn, in which he goes ‘scrabbling back, as people seem to do when they get older’ to discover the lost land of his family’s history. This is the story of his father, the quick-witted boy from a poor and struggling family, who overcame so many disadvantages and shouldered so many burdens to make a go of his life; who found happiness, had it snatched away from him in a single instant, and in the end, after many difficulties, perhaps found it again. And it is the story of the son, too, as Michael re-examines fragments of his own childhood memories, discovering how absurdly alike, and utterly different, he and his father are, and re-creating the world as it might have seemed through the eyes of the people who shaped him.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 本书诙谐感人，作者像所有人一样，随着岁数增加便开始回忆，慢慢体味失去了才知道要珍惜的道理。这是关于他父亲，冲破重重阻碍，飞上枝头变凤凰，白手起家，最终找到幸福的故事。同时这也是儿子的故事，他穿插了自己童年的记忆碎片。发现惊人的相似，当然又有所不同。(兼职翻译-XJJ)
Awards/获奖情况："What Frayn presents us with is an effort to establish his own identity by exploring “the unknown place” represented in his origins. It is, as one would expect from so accomplished a writer, beautifully done ... he is wonderfully good on atmosphere." - New Statesman
"There is nothing nebulous about MY FATHER’S FORTUNE, which for all its allusions to the mistiness of memory, is a masterpiece of stylistic, emotional, psychological and sociological exactness. Ranging from comic star turns…to passages of piercingly lucid Larkinesque melancholy, it adroitly modulates between humour and tragedy, ruefulness and celebration, intellectual keenness and elegiac depths of feeling. A writer who has long been one of our most engrossingly inquiring minds, Frayn has never written with more searching brilliance than in this quest for his past." - Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times
"Such themes are introduced lightly, perhaps in deference to the spirit of his father, who is unlikely to have approved of too much fancy philosophical speculation. However, even without the autobiographical slant, this memoir would be a fitting tribute to the sort of figure who usually slips between the cracks of the historical record. Often funny, sometimes painful, but always exquisitely well written, it reveals the extraordinariness that can lurk in even the most ordinary of lives." - Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Sunday Telegraph
"This is … a beautiful, deeply felt-book… It’s the kind of testimony that many of us wish too late our parents had left us – and, as such, admirably complete." - Benedict Nightingale, The Times
"Forever alert to the inner processes of art and mind Frayn from time to time cuts away and nips backstage to show how the memoir machinery works. Yet, almost miraculously, this keen self-awareness never compromises the deep poignancy – and the rich comedy – of the story he has to tell. Here, as always, that’s part of the trick of it for Frayn." - Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
"It’s often very funny, always very interesting, and soaked in a wistful sort of melancholy that sometimes deepens into a compelling sadness." - Andrew Motion, The Guardian
"...after the outstanding journalism, the brilliant plays – both comic and cerebral – the subtle novels, the masterful translations, one of our best contemporary writers has now made another genre, the family memoir, his own." - The Telegraph
"With this slim, moving memoir, Frayn has finally managed to respond to the father he so clearly loved. He does so with immense panache, writing in a way that evokes emotion without ever lapsing into bathos, threading sentences through with a gentle, touching humour...Tom Frayn’s life is not particularly exceptional and therein lies its charm – the story reflects the experiences of any number of men and women; that it is told so well is testament to his son’s talent." - The Observer
"A profoundly affecting study of family myths and legends." - Financial Times
"A delightful and wholly unsentimental memoir that balances beautifully the twin responses of tears and laughter." - Judges, Costa Biography Award 2010
"Frayn pays tribute here to his quiet influence with a similarly light touch but this is ultimately a profoundly touching piece." - Clare Alfree, Metro
"With MY FATHER’S FORTUNE, multi-talented Michael Frayn explored with charm and cunning his resourceful dad’s wayward route from London poverty to far-from-dull suburbia, and in doing so uncovered his own creative roots." - Boyd Tonkin, "Pick of 2010", Independent
"Written with such vividness and immediacy that the past seems to spring to life before your eyes." - John Preston, ‘Family memoirs for Christmas’, Daily Mail
"A brilliant piece of writing." - Joy Lo Dico, ’Books of the Year’, Independent
About the Author/作者介绍： 迈克尔•弗莱恩（Michael Frayn），1933年生于伦敦，从此开始他的记者生涯。他写过多部小说，包括入围2002年布克奖、荣获2002年白面包奖的《间谍》（SPIES），另有13部戏剧作品。
Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a journalist. He has written several novels, including SPIES, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2002 and won the Whitbread Award for Fiction 2002, and HEADLONG, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize, the Whitbread Novel Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. His thirteen plays range from NOISES OFF to COPENHAGEN and AFTERLIFE, which premiered in 2008.
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Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
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