跪下來舔我的腳

by Amy Yamada, 山田詠美, 施雯黛 (Translator)

SM是一種私密性的、搬不上檯面的享樂，但其實大多數的性愛，不也就是這麼回事嗎？

情欲與施虐：
試問，現在哪裡還有女人可以擁有奴隸？又有什麼樣的工作是可以讓女人奴隸男人，卻又讓他們感到高興的？

情欲與靈魂：
性是男女兩性之間很重要的溝通管道之一，應該認真對待的事，日本人卻恥於去面對，肉體結合的愛是最棒的，如果再可以靈肉合一，那就更完美不過了……

情欲與書寫：
他們（色情週刊）記錄的是性愛的種種，我寫的是做愛時的感情，那種感覺完全不一樣啊！專門寫性愛類黃色小說的人，希望的是所有看到書的人，不但會隨著劇情呻吟，最好還跟著整個人融入其中，但我絕對不是這樣的。

SM俱樂部裡永遠保有尊嚴的「女王」、在各種變態遊戲中尋求性滿足的「奴隸」、形形色色的脫衣舞孃、PUB裡追逐黑人的年輕女性、表面道貌岸然，卻有著奇怪性癖好的大學教授、與女兒共浴至其十五歲的父親、私生活備受爭議的文學新人獎得主......

善於描繪都會人感官遊戲的山田詠美在這本半自傳小說裡，為我們提供了一幅又一幅暗夜與欲望的圖像，在情欲與人性的大膽描摹以及真實與虛構的編織之間，相當程度地透露了作者的內心世界，也訴說了她走上寫作一途的心路歷程。

250 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Amy Yamada (AKA 山田 詠美, Yamada Eimi) born February 8, 1959, is a popular but controversial contemporary Japanese writer who is most famous for her stories that address issues of sexuality, racism, and interracial marriage, topics not typically discussed openly in Japanese society.

Born in Tokyo as Futaba Yamada, she lived in several places around Japan due to her father's job. This transient lifestyle forced her to confront issues of separation and bullying, issues that many of her protagonists also deal with.

According to her interview with the Japanese magazine Bungei, during middle school she was moved by African-American soul music and began to read any novels she could find written by black people, or featuring black people. She held a job in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, an area rich with foreigners.

After graduating from high school in 1977, she entered Meiji University's Literature Department, but dropped out before graduating. After a short stint writing and drawing manga, she began writing novels in 1980. Though her works garnered some attention, even receiving praise from Japanese literary critic Jun Eto (江藤淳 Eto Jun?), she only achieved widespread recognition in 1985, when Bedtime Eyes won the Bungei Prize. In writing Bedtime Eyes, Yamada drew upon her experiences with black people and black culture and combined them with the Japanese literary tradition.

In 1996, "Trash" was published in English translation by Kodansha International (translator: Sonya L. Johnson). In May 2006, three of Yamada's novellas (Bedtime Eyes 「ベッドタイム･アイズ」, The Piano Player's Fingers 「指の戯れ」 and Jesse 「ジェシーの背骨」) were published in English translation (translators: Yumi Gunji and Marc Jardine) as a single volume by St Martin's Press under the collective title Bedtime Eyes.

In Yamada's second collection of works, Jesse's Spine, Yamada depicts the experiences of a woman who is learning to adjust to life with her lover's child from another relationship. The writing style of this work has been compared to William Saroyan's novel, Papa You're Crazy. Through her depiction of the child's perspective on the world, her book was a critical success, earning her a nomination for the Akutagawa Prize for new authors. In her short novels Classroom for the Abandoned Dead, Afterschool Music, and I Can't Study, Yamada tackles the topics of childhood life, bullying, and school life. In an interview with Bungei Shunjū upon winning the Akutagawa Prize, Risa Wataya and Hitomi Kanehara named Yamada's Afterschool Music as one of their major influences, explaining that her works were one of the greatest depictions of modern Japan.