BEFORE THE KNIFE(ISBN=) 英文原版

　　In this unforgettable memoir, acclaimed novelist Carolyn
Slaughter recalls her childhood in Africa and how the land itself
released her from a rage that threatened to destroy her.
　　For Carolyn Slaughter, who grew up in Botswana in the 1950s, it
was the Kalahari Desert that made life bearable. Her father was a
cruel and violent district commissioner during the last days of
British colonial rule, and their family’s stiff English facade
masked an unspeakable household secret. But out in the bush, the
intensity of the air and the beauty of the landscape touched her
with a kind of feverish grace. She would disappear for hours to
watch the flat brown river with its water lilies and crocodiles;
the thorn trees and the flocks of flamingos; the local women with
their babies strapped to their backs. Filled with the majesty and
splendor of the ever-changing desert, Before The Knife is the
deeply moving story of a girl who endured and transcended her
family’s violence to emerge an impassioned observer and explicator
of her world.

　　Carolyn Slaughter was born in New Delhi, India, and spent most
of her childhood in the Kalahari Desert of what is now Botswana.
Soon after leaving Africa in 1961, she wrote what would later
become her highly acclaimed novel Dreams of the Kalahari.
She followed this with eight more novels. After living for many
years in London, she moved to the United States with her family in
1986.

　　?Searing?. [Slaughter] captures the dark beautfy of her
adopted homeland, and her passion for its is contagious.? ?The
Boston Globe
　　?Remarkable. . . . Written with such beauty, courage, and
truthfulness that it will rank with other masterpieces about life
in Africa.? ?The Times (London)
　　?A haunting evocation of her fraught family life in Africa?s
Kalahari Desert. . . . Slaughter summons both the terrible secrecy
and the wonder of her childhood.? ?O, The Oprah Magazine
　　?Slaughter conveys the dangerous unforgiving landscape of the
Kalahari Desert with searing immediacy.? -Los Angeles Times Book
Review
　　?Searing. . . . Slaughter balances moments of tranquility with
those of devastation, making this brave memoir engrossing.?
?Vogue
　　?Two lives merge here, one of incredible beauty and one of
incredible pain. . . . Slaughter has succeeded in penning a
chilling and compelling exorcism.? ?Publishers Weekly
　　?Slaughter writes with grace and psychological insight about a
bygone era and the tragic circumstances of her childhood.? ?The
Washington Post Book World
　　?Like the best memoirs?The Liars? Club, Angela?s Ashes, Girl
Interrupted?Before the Knife melds the power of a true story with
literary techniques . . . Masterfully, she finally gives voice to
the scream she describes as lodged in her throat.? ?Camden
Courier-Post
　　?Before the Knife is as sharp as a blade and its spare beautiful
prose goes right through your heart. Rarely have I read such an
honest memoir, as merciless as the blinding light of the African
bush.? ?Francesca Marciano, author of Rules of the Wild
　　?A book that will rank with Doris Lessing?s The Grass is Singing
as one of the great books about [the] subcontinent, and about the
passing of a colonial era whose scares still linger.? ?Cape
Times
　　– Review