邁剋爾•翁達傑（Michael Ondaatje，1943-）齣生於斯裏蘭卡，十一歲時隨母親移居英國，十九歲移居加拿大，並在那裏接受教育。他齣版過五本小說、一本迴憶錄、一本關於電影的非虛構作品和幾部詩集。他於一九九二年齣版的小說《英國病人》（The English Patient）榮獲布剋奬，後被改編成同名電影，二〇〇〇年齣版的小說《菩薩凝視的島嶼》（Anil’s Ghost）獲吉爾奬和美第奇奬。二〇〇七年齣版小說《遙望》（Divisadero），獲得加拿大總督文學奬。他現居多倫多。

From the celebrated author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion comes a remarkable new novel of intersecting lives that ranges across continents and time.

In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence—of both hand and heart—that sets fire to the rest of their lives.

Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada’s casinos and eventually to the landscape of south-central France. It is here, outside a small rural village, that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writer from an earlier time—Lucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around “the raw truth” of Anna’s own life, the one she’s left behind but can never truly leave. And as the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough hewn from the past.

Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multilayered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory. It is Michael Ondaatje's most intimate and beautiful novel to date.

From the Hardcover edition.