JANE AUSTEN was wrong. It is not weddings that make the best fiction, but funerals. Taiye Selasi’s first novel opens with the unexpected death of her hero, Kweku Sai. A brilliant medical student from Ghana who becomes an exceptional surgeon in Boston, as a young man Dr Sai was well on his way to fulfilling the American dream. He graduated top of his class from Johns Hopkins, earning the admiration of all his peers.
简奥斯汀错了。造就一部优秀小说的是葬礼，而不是婚礼。Taiye Selasi的处女作以男主角Kweku Sai的离奇死亡作为开场。Kweku Sai，一名来自加纳的优秀医学院学生逐渐成为波士顿出色的外科医生。作为个年轻人，Sai医生的美国梦走地一帆风顺。他毕业于约翰霍普金斯大学，拔尖的成绩让他赢得了所有同辈们的钦佩。
It takes but a moment, though, for dreams to turn into a nightmare. Called by the president of the hospital, Dr Sai operates against his better judgment on 77-year-old Jane “Ginny” Cabot, a Boston “socialite, wife, mother, grandmother and alcoholic” with a ruptured appendix. She never comes round; a weary surgical nurse marks the time of death as 3am. The Cabots, donors to the hospital, waited too long to call an ambulance. They want to blame someone; the brilliant African surgeon has to be “let go”.
但不久之后，美梦成噩梦。迫于医院院长的要求，Sai医生只能违背自己对病情的准确判断，给一位阑尾破裂的77岁妇女做手术，这个病人名叫Jane Cabot，是意大利裔波士顿人，她有多重身份，是社交名流，人妻，人母，祖母，还是个酒鬼。但术后她未能醒来。筋疲力尽的外科护士写下死亡时间，凌晨3点。Cabot的家人，医院的赞助者，因为等待救护车耽误了抢救时间，他們認為必須有人為此承擔責任，所以年轻有为的非洲外科医生必须“走人”。
Unable to face telling his family, Dr Sai dresses each morning in his surgical scrubs and pretends to go to work. Only when his 14-year-old son witnesses him being thrown out of the hospital does he finally crumble. In the dead of night he abandons his family, leaving Fola, his magnificent Nigerian wife, to raise their four children alone. How each of them faces up to this ordeal is the story of “Ghana Must Go”.
无颜面对妻子孩子的Sai每天穿上工作服假装去上班。当他14岁的儿子目睹他被赶出医院时，他彻底崩溃了。那晚他抛弃了自己的家庭选择自杀，留下妻子，伟大的Fola，独自抚养四个孩子。他们怎样面对残酷的现实成为Ghana Must Go的故事中心。
The book takes its title both from a 1983 campaign to evict 2m Ghanaian refugees from Nigeria and the must-have shopping bag that middle-class Ghanaian women use to bring back shopping from abroad. “Ghana Must Go” comes with a bagload of prepublication praise. For once, the brouhaha is well deserved. Ms Selasi has an eye for the perfect detail: a baby’s toenails “like dewdrops”, a woman sleeps “like a cocoyam. A thing without senses…unplugged from the world.” As a writer she has a keen sense of the baggage of childhood pain and an unforgettable voice on the page. Miss out on “Ghana Must Go” and you will miss one of the best new novels of the season.
书的名字源于两件事。一件是1983事件，尼日利亚当局驱逐了200万加纳难民；另一件是must-have购物袋，加纳的中产阶级妇女用它在国外购物。还未出版，Ghana Must Go就获得了一致好评。这些褒奖实至名归。Selasi十分注重细节：婴儿的脚趾甲“就像露珠”，熟睡的女人“像个芋头，无法感知，被拔出这个世界。”显然，作为一个作家，她对童年痛楚所造成的精神创伤，无法遗忘的心声都有着敏锐的洞察力。错过Ghana Must Go，你也就错过了年度最佳小说之一。