26A
Book ID/图书代码： 00200005B06536
English Summary/英文概要： Identical twins, Georgia and Bessi, live in the loft of 26 Waifer Avenue. It is a place of beanbags, nectarines and secrets, and visitors must always knock before entering. Down below there is not such harmony. Their Nigerian mother puts cayenne pepper on her Yorkshire pudding and has mysterious ways of dealing with homesickness; their father angrily roams the streets of Neasden, prey to the demons of his Derbyshire upbringing. Forced to create their own identities, the Hunter children build a separate universe. Older sister Bel discovers sex, high heels and organic hairdressing, the twins prepare for a flapjack empire, while baby sister Kemy learns to moonwalk for Michael Jackson. It is when the reality comes knocking that the fantasies of childhood start to give way. How will Georgia and Bessi cope in a world of separateness and solitude, and which of them will be stronger? Wickedly funny and devastatingly moving, 26a is an extraordinary first novel. Part fairytale, part nightmare, it moves from the mundane to the magical, the particular to the universal with exceptional flair and imagination. It is for anyone who has had a childhood, and anyone who knows what it is to lose one.
This, too, is a story of 1970s suburbia, as vibrant as Cadwalladr’s novel, but more exotic, both because of its scary passages of magic realism and because the twins’ mother, Ida Hunter, née Tokhokho, ran away from her Nigerian village and an arranged marriage. With a husband, Aubrey, whom she unwisely chose of her own free will, she fetched up in Neasden. Waifer Avenue is disparagingly evoked: “London needed its Neasdens to make the Piccadilly lights, the dazzling Strand, the pigeons at Trafalgar Square and the Queen working from her Buckingham Palace balcony seem exciting.”
It is a place where Ida is so cold and lonely that she heats up the coleslaw and holds imaginary conversations with the mother she hasn’t seen for 16 years; where Aubrey is so angry and muddled that he takes to drink and leaves notes complaining about the state of the fridge. A deadening locale and a collapsing marriage are only a sideshow; the heart of the story is the phantom double- selfhood that Evans convincingly suggests is the troubling essence of identical twinship.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 即使我們有兄弟姊妹，不見得知道他們的內心想法，彼此間的交流，可能更不如和同事或好友的互動。也許，你也有一段孤獨的童年，一個秘密基地或一個餅乾盒是你的小世界，因為有希望和想像力不斷滋長心苗，所以得以茁壯。
《26a》描寫在倫敦一個中低階級的家庭故事，對於現實生活的不滿，每個家族成員依靠自己無邊的想像繼續生活。故事詭異，幽默和感人心扉，讓人想起《白牙》。
《26a》絕對稱得上是上乘處女作，活現70年代郊區居民的生活，作品極其生動、富有強烈的生命力。作者已具超成熟的筆觸與想像力，並成熟地處理任何獨特或完整的情節。是描寫童年，成長與現實的原味小說。
【關於杭特家】
來自奈及利亞的母親，害了嚴重思鄉情緒，只要能放在鍋裡滾的東西，她無所不吃，以區隔她和滿街的英國人有所不同，她不停止地覓食，好讓她沒有機會和家人談話。家中的英國父親，沒有一天清醒，飲酒成性，滿腹怨氣地在街上閒晃，在他艱苦的成長過程中，心魔總是困擾著他，直到現在仍另他不安。
這個家裡的四個姊妹中，大姊Bessi已經開始發現性和高跟鞋的樂趣；另一對小雙胞胎Waifer和Georgia計畫一個烙餅事業；小妹妹Kemy開始學會邁克傑克森的月亮漫步。她們住在門牌26 a的家中閣樓上。面對這樣一個支離破碎、寂寥的現實世界，她們將學會成長和經歷自我認同的過程。
Awards/获奖情况：2005惠特比書獎Whitbread Book Awards Winner
(2006年後更名柯斯達文學獎Costa Book Awards，英國獎項，得獎作品有娛樂性又盡善盡美，足以向大眾推薦)
2006柑橘文學獎-新人獎得主Orange Prize
Winner of The Orange Award for New Writers 26A by DIANA EVANS.
(為女性小說家設置的英國重要獎項，由文化領域專業評審評選)
2006 英國圖書年度作者獎The British Book Award – Writers of the Year
(由英國出版工業運作的年度重要獎項)
About the Author/作者介绍： 作者黛安娜．艾文斯 是新聞工作者，也是藝術評論家。《26a》是她首部小說，文筆成熟因而大獲好評。
Format:HARDCOVER
Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE(到期可授)
Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：
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