Tokarczuk's third novel, Primeval and Other Times was awarded the Passport Prize in 1996 and the Koscielski Prize in 1997, which established the author as one of the leading voices in Polish letters. It is set in the mythical village of Primeval in the very heart of Poland, which is populated by eccentric, archetypal characters. The village, a microcosm of Europe, is guarded by four archangels, from whose perspective the novel chronicles the lives of Primeval's inhabitants over the course of the feral 20th century. In prose that is forceful and direct, the narrative follows Poland's tortured political history from 1914 to the contemporary era and the episodic brutality that is visited on ordinary village life. Yet Primeval and Other Times is a novel of universal dimension that does not dwell on the parochial. A stylized fable as well as epic allegory about the inexorable grind of time, the clash between modernity (the masculine) and nature (the feminine), it has been translated into most European languages. Tokarczuk has said of the novel: "I always wanted to write a book such as this. One that creates and describes a world. It is the story of a world that, like all things living, is born, develops, and then dies." Kitchens, bedrooms, childhood memories, dreams and insomnia, reminiscences, and amnesia - these are part of the existential and acoustic spaces from which the voices of Tokarczuk's tale come, her "boxes in boxes."

当代欧洲重要作家奥尔加·托卡尔丘克 ——

2018 年诺贝尔文学奖得主（2019 年授予），授奖词：“她的叙事富于百科全书式的激情和想象力，代表了一种跨越边界的生命形式”；

2018 年国际布克奖得主，波兰文学女王；

多次获得波兰权威文学大奖“尼刻奖”；

获得 2015 年欧洲 Brückepreises 国际奖。

奥尔加·托卡尔丘克（Olga Tokarczuk）生于 1962 年，是当代波兰国宝级作家。毕业于华沙大学心理学系，1987 年以诗集《镜子里的城市》登上文坛，而后接连出版长篇小说《书中人物旅行记》《E.E》《太古和其他的时间》《白天的房子，夜晚的房子》等，受到波兰评论界的普遍赞扬。她善于在作品中融合民间传说、神话、宗教故事等元素，观照波兰的历史命运与现实生活。

后浪文学即将推出她的新作 Bieguni（英译名Flights，中文暂译名《云游》）也带有明显的托卡尔丘克式的写作特征，通过描述一位荷兰解剖学家乘坐飞机的一次旅行故事，来引申到从 17 世纪到现代的一系列故事。布克奖评委会认为，“这不是一个传统的叙述......我们喜欢这种叙事的声音，它从机智与快乐的恶作剧渐渐转向真正的情感波澜”。

◎ 译者简介

易丽君，生于 1934 年。北京外国语大学教授，博士生导师，中国作家协会、中国翻译协会会员，资深翻译家。两次获得波兰总统授予的波兰共和国十字骑士勋章，三次获得波兰国民教育委员会文化功勋奖章，被波兰共和国议会授予“波兰语言文化大使”称号。译有显克维奇历史小说三部曲、《塔杜施先生》《费尔迪杜凯》《被禁锢的头脑》《先人祭》等。

袁汉镕，生于 1933 年。物理学家，中国原子能科学研究院研究员。与易丽君合译显克维奇历史小说三部曲等。