The Hunters

Name: The Hunters
ISBN: 9787208182851

朱天心Shanghai People's Publishing House2023

4.3

Word count: 69K words
Chapters: 13
ISBN: 9787208182851

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Summary

The Hunters is a collection of essays by Taiwanese novelist Chu Tien-hsin, featuring the street cats as its protagonists. A longtime animal-protection volunteer, the author finds in the cats that "appear suddenly and vanish in haste" in her home and alleyways the softest and sharpest part of her writing. Observing from an equal footing, the book records the individual lives of more than a dozen urban marginal "hunters": some battle-hardened and wild like street kings, some timid and reticent, peering down at people from high places, and some greedy and clingy, lingering at human doorsteps and refusing to leave; some roam human homes without leaving, while others are ultimately lost in the street underworld. Chu Tien-hsin writes of their meetings and partings, their pride and embarrassment, and of her own situation of having "given them freedom, yet earned their bonds." In the cold city, the brief encounters between humans and cats are full of warmth, yet not only warmth: through the cats' situation she asks how humans treat the weak, the other, and the alien, treating attitudes toward cats as an extension of attitudes toward fellow humans. The epigraph on the title page—"This book is written for those who do not like or do not understand cats"—states the book's position: not pet-style doting, but gazing upon and respecting cats as independent, self-reliant subjects each exercising their own abilities. The SDX Joint Publishing edition includes prefaces and afterwords by Qian Yongxiang, Sun Ge, and Wu He; the 2012 New Star Press edition adds "Male Cats"; the 2023 Century Wenjing new edition is published by Shanghai People's Publishing House and includes Qian Yongxiang's recommended preface and Sun Ge's afterword.

Editor's review

猫书很多，能把猫写成“主体”的却很少。朱天心笔下的街头猫族不是宠物、不是玩偶，而是一群独立自在的“猎人”，各逞其能在人类支配的缝隙里争取一份存活空间。她与猫的关系是“相逢”而不是“占有”，于是页里行间各样猫态自在地上场退场，既不讳言猫生的窘迫、艰难、残酷与偏执，也不吝于让它们展现娇媚、多情、冷峻与优雅。钱永祥说，这样的猫书“应该与人类英雄的传记归于同一类文体”；孙歌则指出，对待猫的态度其实是人类对待同类态度的延伸——记录猫生，恰恰是朱天心介入社会现实的方式。文字爱憎分明，笑中带泪，读时莞尔，读后又忍不住为城市角落里那些短暂的生命心酸。全书篇幅不大，六万余字，却密度极高，适合慢读、重读。扉页那句“本书写给不喜欢和不了解猫的人”，既是挑战，也是邀请。

Who it's for

A good fit for

喜欢猫、关心流浪动物处境与 TNR 议题的读者
偏爱华语散文随笔、欣赏朱天文朱天心一路文字风格的读者
关注动物伦理、人与他者共处关系的社科读者
希望用一本轻量小书进入台湾当代文学的入门读者

Not a good fit for

期待轻松治愈“萌猫故事集”的读者，本书有不少残酷与死亡
只想看养猫实用指南、家猫护理知识的读者
对散文中大量议论与作者主观爱憎不太适应的读者

Reading tips

先读钱永祥的推荐序与孙歌的代跋，再读正文，更容易把握“猫作为主体”的核心视角。
一天读一两篇即可，每篇写一两只猫的完整命运，连着读容易情绪过载。
可配合作者的《那猫那人那城》对读，理解她二十余年动保实践的脉络。
读完后不妨留意自己所在城市的街猫与动保组织，这本书的落点在行动。

About the publisher

Shanghai People's Publishing House China · Founded in 1951

Shanghai People's Publishing House is a comprehensive publisher whose list focuses on academic monographs and general-interest titles in philosophy, social sciences, politics and law, economics and management, and history. Among its books are Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties History in the Chinese Dynastic History series; The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in foreign literature; the Wenjing Classical Translation Illustrated Edition of The Complete Greek Tragedies of Euripides; and works of social theory such as Max Weber's Economy and Society and Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Its authors include Wang Zhongluo, J.R.R. Tolkien, Luo Niansheng, and Zhou Zuoren.

Recommended Preface: Meeting Like Acquaintances, Hard to Forget After Parting (Qian Yongxiang)
Preface
The Hunters
When Humans Meet Cats
Cat Dad
Li Jiabao
Cat Angels
Not Every Cat Is Cute
Cats Differ by Country
Xinhai Cat
The Cat Who Wants Love, Not Bread
Monologue of a Xiaoxing Village Kitten
Afterword: Linking Memories in Life (Sun Ge)

FAQ

这本书是小说还是散文？

是散文随笔集，收入《猎人们》《当人遇见猫》《猫爸爸》《李家宝》等十余篇。不过作者以小说家的笔法观察都市猫族，因此书中带有“都市人类学”式的观察感，许多人称它介于散文与人物志之间。

《猎人们》有几个中文版本，该买哪一版？

常见有2006年三联书店版（ISBN 9787108024862）、2012年新星出版社版（增收《公猫们》，ISBN 9787513308038）和2023年上海人民出版社·世纪文景精装新版。三联版与文景版均收有钱永祥、孙歌的序跋；想读增补篇目可选新星版，想收藏可选文景精装版。

书里的猫后来怎么样了？会让人很难过吗？

作者不回避流浪生命的短暂与风险，书中有猫走失、生病与死亡。她的写法并非煽情，而是冷静记录它们的来去，情绪冲击来自真实本身。读者需要做好被人与猫的离散“扎”一下的准备。

为什么书名叫“猎人们”？

作者把街头猫族视为独立自在的“猎人”：它们在人族支配的城市里捕猎、周旋、谋生，像一群各有生涯的江湖人。这个命名把猫从宠物位置挪开，赋予其主体地位，也是全书视角的关键。

书里提到的TNR是什么？

TNR 指捕捉（Trap）、绝育（Neuter）、放回（Return），是控制街猫数量的常见方法。朱天心作为资深动保志工，参与并推动台北市街猫 TNR 计划，这一实践背景贯穿全书。

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About the author

朱天心 Author

Zhu Tianxin is an important writer in the Chinese-language literary world. Public information about her is limited, and details such as her dates of birth and death, nationality, and education are not clearly recorded in the available sources. Her eight works in the collection span social fiction, prose, and youth literature, with representative titles including The Hunters, Songs of Pounding Soil, That Cat, That Person, That City, In Remembrance of My Village Brothers, The Ancient Capital, A Thirty-Three-Year Dream, The Wanderer, and Love in the Season of Early Summer Lotuses. These works show her writing moving across youthful memory, city life, animal observation, and military dependents' village experience, with delicate and lyrical prose that often links personal recollection to broader historical change. She attends closely to the small textures of everyday life and writes movingly about the ties between people and places, and between people and animals. Her work has had a notable influence on Taiwanese literature and Chinese-language writing.