女人殺人，男人生產。 鬼與神、血與救贖、愛與背叛的魔幻巨作！ 遙遠南方的海蛇島，有一對生於巫女之家的姐妹花。依照島上陳規，長女事奉光明之國，守護島的白晝，負有接續後代的重大任務；次女則事奉幽冥之國，守護島的黑夜，也就是死人居住的世界。姐姐加美空聰穎美麗，繼承島上地位最崇高的大巫女，日夜為小島祈禱。妹妹浪間卻被稱為不潔之人，不同的幸運，使得原本感情深厚的姐妹，走向完全相反的道路。 原本注定一輩子效命死者之國、不得與男子交媾的巫女浪間，卻犯下違抗宿命的大罪，愛上家族遭到詛咒的真人，二人一起逃出島上並生下小孩。浪間在海上生下女兒夜宵，卻被深愛的男人給勒斃，僅十六歲便死去，落入了黃泉之國，開始侍奉起女神伊邪那美。伊邪那美因被自己丈夫伊邪那岐所背叛，終生必須留在邪穢的黃泉國，一處心懷怨恨、遺憾、死不瞑目的幽魂才會來的地方。心懷怨懟的她便決定每天賜死一千凡人。 浪間死後一心想要了解真人扼殺她的真正意圖，得知有方法回到生者的世界，她不惜二次死亡，化作黃蜂，使盡力氣飛回海蛇島，尋找她的女兒及真人，沒想到卻得知更殘忍的真相。黃泉國裡人神共處，像是相依為命。被囚禁於黃泉國的女神伊邪那美，以及遭深愛的男人殺害的凡人浪間，生與死、憎惡與愛戀、怨恨與牽掛，一道男女之間恆古的情感糾葛。伊邪那美身為黃泉國女神的痛苦，彷彿世間女子宿命般的悲哀，被囚禁於黑暗的怨念，永遠不會消失。 本書特色 ◎榮獲第十九屆紫式部文學獎 ◎全球三十多國跨國合作之神話系列首部日本神話作品 ◎直木獎作家桐野夏生完美重述《古事記》

A brilliant new collection of stories from one of the most acclaimed and beloved writers of our time. Alice Munro’s peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in often brief but always spacious and timeless stories is once again everywhere apparent in this brilliant new collection. In story after story, she illumines the moment a life is forever altered by a chance encounter or an action not taken, or by a simple twist of fate that turns a person out of his or her accustomed path and into a new way of being or thinking. A poet, finding herself in alien territory at her first literary party, is rescued by a seasoned newspaper columnist, and is soon hurtling across the continent, young child in tow, toward a hoped-for but completely unplanned meeting. A young soldier, returning to his fiancée from the Second World War, steps off the train before his stop and onto the farm of another woman, beginning a life on the move. A wealthy young woman having an affair with the married lawyer hired by her father to handle his estate comes up with a surprising way to deal with the blackmailer who finds them out. While most of these stories take place in Munro’s home territory—the small Canadian towns around Lake Huron—the characters sometimes venture to the cities, and the book ends with four pieces set in the area where she grew up, and in the time of her own childhood: stories “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact.” A girl who can’t sleep imagines night after wakeful night that she kills her beloved younger sister. A mother snatches up her child and runs for dear life when a crazy woman comes into her yard. Suffused with Munro’s clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these tales about departures and beginnings, accidents and dangers, and outgoings and homecomings both imagined and real, paint a radiant, indelible portrait of how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.

『小說是惡魔，抑或作家是惡魔？』 《OUT主婦殺人事件》出版12年後的又一衝擊力作！！ 彼は、小説に命を懸ける、と何度も言った。 担当編集者であり、恋人でもあった青司と激烈な別れの後、小説家・鈴木タマキは恋愛における抹殺をテーマに「淫」という小説を書こうとしていた。 抹殺といっても本物の死ではない。 無視、放置、逐電など、自分の都合で相手との関係を断ち、相手の心を「殺す」ことと規定した。 主人公は緑川未来男が書いた『無垢人』という小説の中に登場する「○子」である。 緑川には愛人がいて、その存在を知った妻は激しく嫉妬し、夫婦の闘争のあげく幼い末息子が事故死した。 『無垢人』はその修羅の日々を赤裸々に書いた小説だった。 魂を凍らせる、恋愛「抹殺」小説。