安‧萊絲（Anne Rice）

（1941～ ），美國哥德式恐怖小說與情慾書寫的代表作家，作品有數十冊，其中吸血鬼系列暢銷數千萬冊。安．萊絲生於紐奧良天主教家庭，在舊金山大學取得政治學學位。她開始寫作起因於六歲的女兒1975年死於白血病。次年（1976年）她即以《夜訪吸血鬼》一書在文壇崛起。「吸血鬼紀事」（The Vampire Chronicles）包括：《夜訪吸血鬼》（1976）、《吸血鬼黎斯特》（1985）、《天譴者的女王》（1988）、《肉體竊賊》（1992）等精采經典；此系列晚近幾部如《少年吸血鬼阿曼德》、《聖血與純金》，以及完結篇《血夜頌歌》讓作者穩居超自然文學大師寶座。

安‧萊斯將筆下的吸血鬼社群刻鏤得曼妙鮮利，聲色奪人之餘更充斥著慾力奔流的異質生命能量；吸血族版圖則自歐洲橫跨至美洲新大陸，包括溯源到數千年前的古埃及，隨著跨文化跨情慾版圖的吸血鬼譜系，安．萊絲也受到全世界的讀者喜愛。此外安‧萊斯還以「梅菲爾女巫生涯三部曲」、《木乃伊》、《骸骨侍從》等書切入超自然視界的不朽情讎，雕琢出各色非人主角顛倒眾生的異色魅力。《小提琴》是以古典音樂為背景的感官創作。新近作品有《耶穌基督：走出埃及》和《耶穌基督：通往迦南的道路》。

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In the latest installment of The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice summons up dazzling worlds to bring us the story of Armand - eternally young, with the face of a Botticelli angel. Armand, who first appeared in all his dark glory more than twenty years ago in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire , the first of The Vampire Chronicles, the novel that established its author worldwide as a magnificent storyteller and creator of magical realms.

Now, we go with Armand across the centuries to the Kiev Rus of his boyhood - a ruined city under Mongol dominion - and to ancient Constantinople, where Tartar raiders sell him into slavery. And in a magnificent palazzo in the Venice of the Renaissance we see him emotionally and intellectually in thrall to the great vampire Marius, who masquerades among humankind as a mysterious, reclusive painter and who will bestow upon Armand the gift of vampiric blood.

As the novel races to its climax, moving through scenes of luxury and elegance, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to nineteenth-century Paris and today's New Orleans, we see its eternally vulnerable and romantic hero forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.

From the Trade Paperback edition.