Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of a story collection, Pilgrims (a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award); a novel, Stern Men; and The Last American Man (a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award).
伊莉莎白·吉尔伯特，小说家、新闻记者、两度获得National Magazine Award 深度报导奖，作品The Last American Man 入选美国国家图书奖决赛名单及2002年纽约时代年代好书，故事集Pilgrims获得Paris Review 新人小说等奖项。曾为知名杂志GQ、Bazaar、The New York Magazine撰稿。 因本书在全美的热销，2007年入选TIME官方网站100位具影响力的人物。
The only thing wrong with this readable, funny memoir of a magazine writer's yearlong travels across the world in search of pleasure and balance is that it seems so much like a Jennifer Aniston movie. Like Jen, Liz is a plucky blond American woman in her thirties with no children and no major money worries. As the book opens, she is going through a really bad divorce and subsequent stormy rebound love affair. Awash in tears in the middle of the night on the floor of the bathroom, she begins to pray for guidance, “you know —— like, to God.” God answers. He tells her to go back to bed. I started seeing the Star headlines： “Jen's New Faith！” “What Really Happened at the Ashram！” “Jen's Brazilian Sugar Daddy —— Exclusive Photos！” Please understand that Gilbert, whose earlier nonfiction book, The Last American Man, portrayed a contemporary frontiersman, is serious about her quest. But because she never leaves her self-deprecating humor at home, her journey out of depression and toward belief lacks a certain gravitas. The book is composed of 108 short chapters (based on the beads in a traditional Indian japa mala prayer necklace) that often come across as scenes in a movie. And however sad she feels or however deeply she experiences something, she can't seem to avoid dressing up her feelings in prose that can get too cute and too trite. On the other hand, she convinced me that she acquired more wisdom than most young American seekers —— and did it without peyote buttons or other classic hippie medicines. When Gilbert determines that she requires a year of healing, her first stop is Italy, because she feels she needs to immerse herself in a language and culture that worships pleasure and beauty. This sets the stage for a “Jen's Romp in Rome,” where she studies Italian and, with newfound friends, searches for the best pizza in the world......
作者伊丽莎白·吉尔伯特在小时候有个梦想：以为自己长大后会是儿女成群的妈妈。但在30岁以后，她才发现自己既不想要小孩，也不想要丈夫。108个短篇象征了灵魂探索、自我发现之旅。作者在意大利、印度、印尼三个不同国度之间寻找自己——到意大利品尝美食，尽享感官的满足，在世上好的比萨与美酒的陪伴下，灵魂就此再生。在印度，与瑜伽士的接触，洗涤了她混乱的身心。巴厘岛上，她寻得了身心的平衡。在这一整年的追寻快乐与虔诚之间的平衡中，她终于发现：“拯救我的人，并非王子，而是我自己操控我，拯救我”。
