Wolf Totem

　　側對面的山坡上，大群的黃羊仍在警惕地搶草吃，但似乎還沒有發現狼群的陰謀。狼群包圍線的一端，已越來越靠近兩人的雪窩，陳陣(Chen Zhen)一動也不敢動，他感到自己幾乎凍成了一具冰雕……

　　這是陳陣在草原上第二次遇到大狼群。此刻，第一次與狼群遭遇的驚悸又顫遍他的全身。他相信任何一個漢人經歷過那種遭遇，誰的膽囊也不可能完好無損。

　　陳陣發現，小狼不是不會跟著牛車跑和走，不是學不會小狗的跟車步伐，但是，牠寧可忍受與死亡絞索搏鬥的疼痛，就是不肯像狗那樣被牽著走。被牽與拒牽，在性格上絕對是狼與狗、狼與獅虎熊象、狼與大部分人根本區別的一道界限。草原上沒有一條狼會越出這道界限，向人投降。拒絕服從，拒絕被牽，是作為一條真正的蒙古草原狼做狼的絕對準則，即便是這條從未受過狼群教導的小狼也是如此。

　　本書由幾十個有機連貫的「狼故事」一氣呵成，情節緊張激烈而又新奇神秘。讀者可從書中每一篇章、每個細節中攫取強烈的閱讀快感，令人欲罷不能。

★本書獲2007年頒佈之首屆曼氏亞洲文學獎( Man Asian Literary Prize)
★本書繁體中文版本由風雲時代出版。

　　Wolf Totem has won the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize, and has broken all sales records in China, with over one million copies sold in the first year.  It is the epic Chinese tale depicting the dying culture of the Mongols, and the parallel extinction of the animal they believe to be sacred: the Mongolian wolf.

　　Published under a pen name, Wolf Totem was a phenomenon in China, breaking all sales records there and earning the distinction of being the second most read book after Mao's little red book. There has been much international excitement too-to date, rights have been sold in thirteen countries. Wolf Totem is set in 1960s China-the time of the Great Leap Forward, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution.

　　Searching for spirituality, Beijing intellectual Chen Zhen travels to the pristine grasslands of Inner Mongolia to live among the nomadic Mongols-a proud, brave, and ancient race of people who coexist in perfect harmony with their unspeakably beautiful but cruel natural surroundings. Their philosophy of maintaining a balance with nature is the ground stone of their religion, a kind of cult of the wolf.

　　The fierce wolves that haunt the steppes of the unforgiving grassland searching for food are locked with the nomads in a profoundly spiritual battle for survival-a life-and-death dance that has gone on between them for thousands of years. The Mongols believe that the wolf is a great and worthy foe that they are divinely instructed to contend with, but also to worship and to learn from. Chen's own encounters with the otherworldly wolves awake a latent primitive instinct in him, and his fascination with them blossoms into obsession, then reverence.

　　After many years, the peace is shattered with the arrival of Chen's kinfolk, Han Chinese, sent from the cities to bring modernity to the grasslands. They immediately launch a campaign to exterminate the wolves, sending the balance that has been maintained with religious dedication for thousands of years into a spiral leading to extinction-first the wolves, then the Mongol culture, finally the land. As a result of the eradication of the wolves, rats become a plague and wild sheep graze until the meadows turn to dust. Mongolian dust storms glide over Beijing, sometimes blocking out the moon.

　　Part period epic, part fable for modern days, Wolf Totem is a stinging social commentary on the dangers of China's overaccelerated economic growth as well as a fascinating immersion into the heart of Chinese culture.

作者簡介

Jiang Rong(姜戎)
　　五十八歲，北京人，大學研究人員，主業為政治經濟學，偏重政治學方面。一九六七年赴內蒙古額侖草原插隊。七八年返城，七九年考入中國社科院研究生院。因插隊時對草原狼產生興趣並精心研究，姜戎創作《狼圖騰》。作品出版後，讀者反應熱烈，除在出版社安排的記者會上露面外，作者不拍照、不談身世，基本拒絕媒體採訪。

　　Jiang Rong was born in Beijing in 1946. In 1967, he joined the first wave of intellectuals who moved to the countryside as volunteers, living with nomadic communities on the Chinese border of Inner and Outer Mongolia for eleven years. Following his return to Beijing, Jiang embarked on postgraduate studies in economics and political science and assumed an academic position at a Beijing university. Now retired, he lives in Beijing with his wife. Wolf Totem is his first novel.

譯者簡介

Howard Goldblatt (葛浩文)
　　譯有多部中文英譯作品，如西西的A Woman like Me(像我這樣的一個女子)、黃春明的Sayonara, Tsai Chien(莎喲哪拉，再見)、The Taste of Apples(蘋果的滋味)等書。
　　Howard Goldblatt is the foremost translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the West. He has published English translations of more than thirty novels and story collections by writers from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. He has also authored and edited half a dozen books on Chinese literature. He is a winner of the Translation of the Year Award given by the American Translators Association. The founding editor of the journal Modern Chinese Literature, he has written for The Washington Post, The Times1 of London, Time magazine, World Literature Today, and The Los Angeles Times. He is currently a professor at the University of Notre Dame.