入選《經濟學人》年度選書
榮獲懷丁作家獎非小說類獎（Whiting Writer’s Award-Non-Fiction）
文學院宅女下海當偵探，是托爾斯泰死因真的不單純，
或者只是象牙塔內論文選題與爭取補助的致勝奇招？
經典小說《紅色騎兵軍》作者巴別爾生平成謎，
因此使他的作品研討會宛如巴別塔傳說，
後人、學者與書迷口中的他言人人殊，莫衷一是，
究竟哪個才是他的真面目？
原本計畫前往莫斯科學俄語的艾莉芙，
為何陰錯陽差來到烏茲別克？
除了學到烏茲別克語中關於「哭」有上百個字彙外，
她又如何與此地結下不解之緣？
原本嚴肅枯燥的俄國文學與研究所生活這兩大主題，在艾莉芙．巴圖曼輕快詼諧的筆法下，成了一幕幕令人莞爾的黑色狂想曲。從美國加州、瑞士、烏茲別克再到聖彼得堡，她帶著我們追隨諸多俄羅斯文學大師的足跡，一探故事背後的故事。這一系列專欄文章不但引起熱烈迴響，更為新生代讀者展示了俄國文學的不同面貌，也讓老讀者面對這些熟悉的經典時，有了嶄新的閱讀視角。
One of The Economist’s 2011 Books of the Year
No one who read Elif Batuman’s first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. “Babel in California” told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel’s last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel’s secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature.
Batuman’s subsequent pieces—for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and the London Review of Books— have made her one of the most sought-after and admired writers of her generation, and its best traveling companion. In The Possessed we watch her investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy’s ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin’s wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has one hundred different words for crying; and see an eighteenth-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva.
Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their place in The Possessed. Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence—including her own.
★本書中譯版《誰殺了托爾斯泰：我被俄國文學附魔的日子》由聯經出版公司出版。
作者簡介
艾莉芙．巴圖曼（Elif Batuman）
生於美國紐約市，成長於新澤西州，哈佛大學畢業，後獲史丹佛大學比較文學博士學位。雖專精俄羅斯文學與文化，並以此題材大受《紐約客》與《哈波》等雜誌讀者歡迎，但她其實生於俄羅斯死對頭的土耳其家庭。巴圖曼曾獲羅娜．傑菲女作家獎，並因本書獲得懷丁作家獎非小說類獎。目前定居舊金山，於史丹佛大學教授文學。
ELIF BATUMAN was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey. She now lives in Twin Peaks, San Francisco (near the radio tower). She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Prize. She teaches literature at Stanford University.
