Cat’s Cradle

　　這是一個尋求真相之旅的故事。
　　
　　約拿在寫一本《世界末日》的書，他在探訪第一顆原子彈落到廣島那一天，美國的重要人物都做了些什麼事？
　　
　　於是他追索原子彈之父霍尼克博士的三個子女，發生了許多令驚奇而又可以理解之事…最後，他們來到一個小小的像「瓊斯帝王」一般的島國─聖羅倫佐共和國。
　　
　　他將發會發現人類的許多行為的虛幻，如同馮內果一貫的質疑，也許，只有「布克農」─個本質上「泛愛眾」的心靈交合，能挽回這個世界？……

　　*本書中譯本<<貓的搖籃>>由麥田出版

　　All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.'

　　Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of Ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness.

　　Will Felix Hoenikker's death wish come true? Will his last, fatal gift to humankind bring about the end that, for all of us, is nigh?

　　Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global apocalypse preys on our deepest fears of witnessing the end and, worse still, surviving it . . .

作者簡介

馮內果（Kurt Vonnegut，1922-2007）

　　美國文壇大家，黑色幽默派代表人物，代表作有《第五號屠宰場》、《貓的搖籃》、《冠軍的早餐》、《囚犯》、《時震》等。曾在康乃爾大學就讀，第二次世界大戰期間服役於美國航空部隊，戰後在芝加哥大學攻讀人類學，四○年代後期成為記者和作家。著有十多本極受好評的小說和無數的短文和評論。

　　1963年《貓的搖籃》出版時他被封為「真正的藝術家」，1968年《第五號屠宰場》一書的出版，更奠定了他在美國及世界文壇的地位。他慣有的黑色幽默、諷刺的筆調和豐富的想像力，自1959年起就擄掠了全美國的注意，他確如英國作家葛蘭姆．格林（Graham Greene）公開推崇所言：馮內果是當代美國最好的作家之一。

　　Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. He studied at the universities of Chicago and Tennessee and later began to write short stories for magazines. His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1951 and was followed by The Sirens of Titan (1959), Mother Night (1961), Cat's Cradle (1963), God Bless You Mr Rosewater (1964), Welcome to the Monkey House (1968); a collection of short stories, Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Slapstick, or Lonesome No More (1976), Jailbird (1979), Deadeye Dick (1982), Galapagos (1985), Bluebeard (1988), Hocus Pocus (1990) and Timequake (1997). He is also the author of a number of collections of short stories and essays. Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007.