Autumn

　　秋天。充滿了霧與豐饒收穫的季節，這是濟慈在1819年所感受到的。

　　2016年的秋天又是如何呢？32歲的Elisabeth，是一所倫敦大學臨時計薪制的藝術史初級講師，沒有固定工作、幾乎一切對她而言都負擔不起，在已經脫離學生身分十幾年之後，仍住在同樣的租屋處。Daniel是Elisabeth自小最喜歡的鄰居，他們相遇的那一年她才8歲，自此，他們成為一生的摯友，他帶Elisabeth認識藝術，並且教她永遠保持閱讀的習慣。如今，Daniel已經101歲了，住在照護機構等待死亡。

　　Daniel沒有任何家人，因此Elisabeth自告奮勇承擔了這個責任，即便在Daniel行將就木的悲傷時刻，兩人間的友誼仍然暖心、美好。然而在充滿回憶與睿智對話的病房之外，英國社會瀰漫著惡意和威脅，那一年在夏天過後，英國已公投決定脫歐，激起的狂喜與絕望勢均力敵。在那個萬分複雜的時刻，國家從內被撕裂了。

　　本書是Ali Smith季節四部曲的第一部，背景設在2016年經歷脫歐公投後的英國，Smith證明了她不但是出色的小說家，同時也是英國傑出的歷史紀錄者之一，她精準掌握了社會和政治的脈動，融合虛構與現實──尤其透過真實人物、英年早逝的英國普普藝術家Pauline Boty在小說中的現身，Smith精巧展現了時間流轉的面貌，她的故事橫跨了深長的歲月、步履輕盈地穿梭於現在與過去之間，寫下了一個關於年華逝去、時間和愛的故事。(文/博客來編譯)

　　LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017

　　A breathtakingly inventive new novel from the Man Booker-shortlisted and Baileys Prize-winning author of How to be both

　　Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. That's what it felt like for Keats in 1819.

　　How about Autumn 2016?

　　Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer.

　　Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.

　　Ali Smith's new novel is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. This first in a seasonal quartet casts an eye over our own time. Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearian jeu d'esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s Pop art: the centuries cast their eyes over our own history-making.

　　Here's where we're living. Here's time at its most contemporaneous and its most cyclic.

　　From the imagination of the peerless Ali Smith comes a shape-shifting series, wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories, and a story about ageing and time and love and stories themselves.

　　Here comes Autumn.