内容简介

　　“选择？什么时候选择？我选择过了吗？

　　一个女子，白裙白鞋，颈上系了条粉色围巾，站在草地上。她的外表就是选择的结果。她穿搭精致，符合她所属阶级的身份，而且她是作为某人的妻子待在这里的。当然，也作为孩子们的妈妈……”

　　一个普通夏日，中年主妇凯特多年的平静生活悄然崩塌——家人各自忙着未来规划，房子即将出租，凯特惊觉自己成了可有可无的人。怅然若失的凯特走出家门，开始了一次漫长的夏日之旅。三段被浓缩的时光、三种不寻常的际遇，交织着隐喻式的梦境，凯特迷失在自由气息中，又在回忆、徘徊、思索中倏然苏醒。

　　作者简介

　　多丽丝·莱辛（Doris Lessing，1919—2013）

　　2007年诺贝尔文学奖得主，继弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫之后的又一世界级女作家，不屈的自由女性，硬核的“文坛女斗士”。

　　1919年10月22日，在伊朗古城的一所石屋中，多丽丝·泰勒出世了。她的父亲本是英国的一名普通银行职员，在“一战”参军失去了一条腿；母亲曾是父亲截肢时的管床护士。多丽丝4岁时，全家辗转回到英格兰老家，不久又迁至非洲的津巴布韦垦荒种地。

　　14岁时，多丽丝因眼疾退学，为逃离贫穷压抑的原生家庭和荒凉闭塞的乡野，到南非大都市谋生，先后做过护士、保姆、接线员。25岁时，她随第二任丈夫、一名德国流亡共产党人改姓莱辛。30岁和平分手后，她携幼子返回母国，只带着少量现金和书稿、衣服，以及一箱书，但她不禁欢呼：“我自由了，我终于完全成为我自己。我是我自己创造出来的，我是自足的独立个体！”

　　翌年，莱辛从非洲带来的书稿《野草在歌唱》出版，轰动英美文坛。她43岁时，长篇小说《金色笔记》问世，被誉为“女性解放运动启蒙书”；但莱辛拒绝这一标签，说“我想写的是一部记录时代的编年史”。她交游广泛，情史丰富，热衷于社会运动，也因曾是共产主义的有力支持者，受到英国军情五处长达二十年的秘密监视。

　　在不同文明、种族间的迁徙和波澜壮阔的人生，赋予了这位“亚非欧的女性精灵”非凡的见识；她一生写下五十余部小说，曾获毛姆文学奖、英国皇家文学会荣誉奖等几十项大奖，88岁时获诺贝尔文学奖。

　　诺贝尔文学奖评委会说：“莱辛改变了我们审视这个世界的方式。”

Content introduction

"Choice? When to choose? Have I chosen?

A woman with a white dress and white shoes and a pink scarf tied around her neck was standing on the grass. Her appearance is the result of her choice. She dresses well, befitting her class, and she's here as someone's wife. And, of course, as a mother to my children..."

On an ordinary summer day, the quiet life of middle-aged housewife Kate for many years quietly collapses - the family is busy planning for the future, the house is about to be rented, and Kate realizes that she has become an indispensable person. Disappointed, Kate stepped out of the house and embarked on a long summer trip. Three condensed moments, three unusual encounters, interwoven with metaphorical dreams, Kate is lost in the breath of freedom, and suddenly wakes up in memories, wandering, and thinking.

About the author

Doris Lessing (1919-2013)

2007 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, another world-class female writer after Virginia Woolf, unyielding free women, hardcore "female fighters in the literary world".

On October 22, 1919, in a stone house in the ancient city of Iran, Doris Taylor was born. Her father was an ordinary bank clerk in England who had lost a leg in the First World War; My mother was a tube nurse when my father had his leg amputated. When Doris was 4 years old, the family moved back to their native England, and soon moved to Zimbabwe, Africa, to cultivate land.

At the age of 14, Doris dropped out of school because of eye disease, and in order to escape the poor and oppressive family of origin and the desolate and isolated countryside, she went to the metropolis of South Africa to make a living, and has been a nurse, a nanny, and an operator. At the age of 25, she took the surname Lessing with her second husband, an exiled German communist. After an amicable breakup at the age of 30, she returned to her home country with her young son, only a small amount of cash and manuscripts, clothes, and a box of books, but she couldn't help but cheer: "I am free, I am finally fully myself." I am my own creation, I am a self-sufficient individual!"

The following year, Lessing brought from Africa the manuscript "Weeds are singing" was published, the British and American literary circles sensation. When she was 43 years old, her novel The Golden Note was published, which was praised as "the enlightenment book of women's liberation movement". Lessing rejected the label, saying, "What I wanted to write was a chronicle of The Times." She had a wide circle of friends, a rich history of love, a passion for social movements, and because she had been a strong supporter of communism, she was secretly monitored by the British MI5 for two decades.

The migration between different civilizations and races and the magnificent life gave this "female spirit of Asia, Africa and Europe" extraordinary insight; She wrote more than 50 novels in her life and won dozens of awards such as Maugham Literature Prize and the Honorary Award of the Royal Society of Literature, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 88.

"Lessing changed the way we look at the world," the Nobel committee said.