A Streetcar Named Desire

这并非一个关于疯子的故事，而是一场两种生存方式的正面相撞。Blanche带着旧南方的优雅、谎言与体面闯入新奥尔良逼仄喧闹的街巷，她以幻想为盾，靠陌生人的慈悲苟活；Stanley则以赤裸的肉体和直接的欲望，把她精心维持的幻象一层层剥开。打动读者的，恰是这种不对等的残酷：没有人能独占德行，也没有人能垄断邪恶。读者在Blanche身上看见被一声枪响终身桎梏的脆弱，也看清Stella究竟被什么禁锢。它适合所有愿意直面人性幽暗的人——这里没有脸谱化的恶人，只有被时代与天性推逼到极限的普通人。

Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, where his grandfather was the episcopal clergyman. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his family to St Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He entered the University of Iowa in 1938 and completed his course, at the same time holding a large number of part-time jobs of great diversity. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940 for his play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and 1955. Among his many other plays Penguin have published The Glass Menagerie (1944), Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Period of Adjustment (1960), The Night of the Iguana (1961), The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963; revised 1964) and Small Craft Warnings (1972).