Autobiography of Red

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

National book Critics Circle Award Finalist

"Anne Carson is, for me, the most exciting poet writing in English today."--Michael Ondaatje

"This book is amazing--I haven't discovered any writing in years so marvelously disturbing." --Alice Munro

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

"A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender."--The New York Times Book Review

"A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday."--The Village Voice

安妮•卡森（Anne Carson）

1950年生于多伦多，童年随着家人迁居，在安大略省多个小城生活过。她在多伦多大学学习古典学，在苏格兰受教于肯尼斯•多福，博士期间她回到多伦多大学研读诗人萨福，研究所得后来被她整理出版为《爱欲的苦甜》。

卡森深受哈罗德•布鲁姆推崇，称其为“在世诸天才之一”，是“智慧作家”，可与艾米丽•勃朗特和艾米丽•狄金森相提并论。

她是目前古典功底最为深厚的一位诗人。同时她也是形式上的创新派，经常用当代的方式，创新的形式来重新阐释古典——以图像、研究和比较切入诗歌写作，所出版的作品几乎每一本都将多种体裁杂糅在一起，如诗歌、论文、翻译等。

目前卡森在美国多所大学教授古典学和比较文学，是纽约大学的驻校诗人。她还活跃在艺术舞台和歌剧剧坛上。