邁剋爾·揚（Michael Young），澳大利亞國立大學人類學教授，主要研究領域為巴布亞新幾內亞和瓦努阿圖人類學、人類學史、生活史。本書為其代錶作，曾入圍2005年詹姆斯·泰特·布萊剋紀念奬（人物傳記類），並於同年獲得英國社會科學院圖書奬。此外著有《搶奪食物：一個馬辛社會中的領導、價值觀和社會控製》（劍橋大學齣版社，1971）、《馬林諾夫斯基的基裏維納》（芝加哥大學齣版社，1988）等。目前正在寫作馬林諾夫斯基傳記的第二部。

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) was one of the most colorful and charismatic social scientists of the twentieth century. His contributions as a founding father of social anthropology and his complex personality earned him international notoriety and near-mythical status. This landmark book presents a vivid portrait of Malinowski’s early life, from his birth in Cracow to his departure in 1920 from the Trobriand Islands of the South Pacific. At the age of 36, he had already created the innovative fieldwork methods and techniques that would secure his intellectual legacy.

Drawing on an exceptionally rich array of primary documents, including Malinowski’s letters and unpublished diaries and manuscripts, Michael Young provides significant new information about the anthropologist’s personality, private life, and career. The author describes Malinowski’s restless life of travel, connections with intellectuals and artists, Nietzschean belief in his own destiny, and legendary fieldwork. The singular man who emerges from these pages fascinates on every level—as a volatile friend and lover, a provocative colleague, a passionate diarist, and a brilliant thinker who pioneered radical change in the field of anthropology.