The City Always Wins

　　Mariam和Khalil，兩個來自不同背景的埃及社運份子，他們為一個旨在對抗開羅政府資訊壓迫的媒體平台「Chaos」工作。藉由Chaos尋找在行動中失蹤的人，替死者留下故事，他們紀錄、剪輯、上傳，將解放廣場上發生的事傳送至全世界。

　　他們投入的是一場不對等的戰爭。政府歷經政權及領導者的更迭，鐵腕作風越趨嚴厲，相對於此，隨著抗爭時間拉長、抗議行動逐漸失控，外部對抗爭者的支援及對整起事件的關注卻漸趨疲弱。

　　Omar Robert Hamilton身兼獨立電影製片人及專欄作家，亦是一個為紀錄2011年革命行動的媒體Mosireen的共同創辦人。近身參與抗爭的經歷，使他能精準捕捉到社會運動現實面的困境，他揭露了一切行動的代價和賭注有多巨大，以及運用社群網站進行宣傳可能引發的混亂。小說橫跨自阿拉伯之春而展開的動盪時代，從解放廣場的抗議、2011年的改選，到軍人推翻穆斯林兄弟會政權，佐以電影般的畫面描述和明快節奏，使讀者身歷其境，彷彿能夠嗅聞到空氣中緊繃的絕望與希望。
《The City Always Wins》對抗爭行動的紀錄和觀察精彩、令人震撼，Hamilton以作家之眼，凝視風暴之中的真實，他的小說超越了報導的極限，不僅呈現了埃及革命的這一段歷史，更宏觀地描繪了一整個試圖改變世界的世代。(文/博客來編譯)

　　The City Always Wins is a remarkable novel from the psychological heart of a revolution. From the communal highs of pitched night battles against the police in Cairo to the solitary lows of defeated exile in New York, Omar Robert Hamilton's debut is a unique immersion into one of the key chapters of the 21st century.

　　Bringing to life the 2011 Egyptian revolution, The City Always Wins conveys with extraordinary intensity all the stages of that place and that time through the lives of its two main characters Mariam and Khalil, ordinary young people caught up in an extraordinary moment.

　　Furthermore, The City Always Wins is a novel not just about Egypt's revolution but about a global generation that tried to change the world.

　　Reminiscent of the writing of Jeet Thayil, Zia Haider Rahma and Nadeem Aslam, Hamilton's prose is arrestingly visual, intensely lyrical and uncompromisingly political. A genuinely exciting new writer, he looks set to become a defining voice of his generation.

作者簡介

　　Omar Robert Hamilton is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. He has written for the Guardian, the London Review of Books and Guernica. He co-founded the Mosireen media collective in Cairo and the Palestine Festival of Literature. This is his debut novel. www.orhamilton.com