硃利安·巴恩斯（Julian Barnes）

齣生於1946年，當代英國文壇三巨頭之一。布剋奬得主，被譽為“用智慧徵服全歐洲的文學鬼纔”。包攬英國、法國、奧地利、丹麥、意大利等國文學奬項17項，榮譽勛章5枚，獲奬記錄橫貫歐洲各國！

《亞瑟與喬治》是除布剋奬獲奬作品《終結的感覺》外，巴恩斯最接近拿到布剋奬的小說。2005年布剋奬競爭異常激烈，憑藉《亞瑟與喬治》，巴恩斯獲得超過諾貝爾奬得主J. M. 庫切和石黑一雄的票選。二選一終選環節，評委爭執不下，甚至為瞭《亞瑟與喬治》延後瞭頒奬時間。盡管與布剋奬失之交臂，《亞瑟與喬治》卻得到瞭“布剋奬無冕之王”的美譽。

巴恩斯以對曆史和現實的深入思考著稱，這在《亞瑟與喬治》中錶現得尤為明顯：“我看到柯南·道爾帶著他的故事嚮我走來……這一次，我把故事帶到瞭維多利亞時代的風暴中心，在那裏，一個龐大的帝國正費力地邁嚮新的世紀。”

布剋奬評委蓋比·伍德稱贊道：“這種受睏於庸常生活的人生悲劇，如此感人，如此讓角色深陷其中，以至於他們隻能盲目地、片麵地麵對這種悲劇。而這，正是真正大師級小說的標誌。”

From one of England’s most esteemed novelists, an utter astonishment that captures an era through one life celebrated internationally and another entirely forgotten.

In the vast expanse of late-Victorian Britain, two boys come to life:George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, in shabby genteel Edinburgh, both of them feeling at once near to and impossibly distant from the beating heart of Empire. One falls prey to a series of pranks en route to a legal vocation, while the other studies medicine before discovering a different calling entirely, and it is years before their destinies are entwined in a mesmerizing alliance. We follow each through outrageous accusation and unrivaled success, through faith and perseverance and dogged self-recrimination, whether in the dock awaiting complete disgrace or at the height of fame while desperately in love with a woman not his wife, and gradually realize that George is half-Indian and that Arthur becomes the creator of the world’s most famous detective. Ranging from London clubs to teeming prisons, from a lost century to the modern age, this novel is a panoramic revelation of things we thought we knew or else had no clue of, as well as a gripping exploration of what goals drive us toward whatever lies in wait–an experience resounding with issues, no less relevant today, of crime and spirituality; of identity and nationality; of what we think, what we believe and what we can prove.

Intriguing, relentless and, most of all, moving, Arthur & George richly extends the reach and achievement of a novelist described by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a dazzling mind in mercurial flight.”