A tall, yellow-haired, young European traveler calling himself “Mogor dell’Amore,” the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the Emperor Akbar, lord of the great Mughal empire, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the imperial capital, a tale about a mysterious woman, a great beauty believed to possess powers of enchantment and sorcery, and her impossible journey to the far-off city of Florence.

The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It is the story of two cities, unknown to each other, at the height of their powers–the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant Akbar the Great wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire, and the treachery of his sons, and the equally sensual city of Florence during the High Renaissance, where Niccolò Machiavelli takes a starring role as he learns, the hard way, about the true brutality of power.

Vivid, gripping, irreverent, bawdy, profoundly moving, and completely absorbing, The Enchantress of Florence is a dazzling book full of wonders by one of the world’s most important living writers.

萨曼·鲁西迪 (1947-),英国著名作家。生于印度孟买一个穆斯林家庭,在英国接受教育。一九七五年他的第一部小说出版,第二部小说《午夜之子》为他赢得了国际声誉。之后他的一系列作品深入探讨了历史和哲学问题,被称为“后殖民文学教父”。在世界文坛,鲁西迪是所有国际大奖的宠 儿,他高产且作品高质量,经得专业人士的品评,也赢得无数读者的好评,受到君特·格拉斯、戈迪默、米兰·昆德拉等世界文学大师的一致推崇。他的《午夜之子》,三次获得布克奖,可谓“布克奖”之尊。鲁西迪目前共出版长篇小说十部、短篇小说集三部,另有两部儿童作品、一部回忆录及十余部非小说作品。主要作品有《午夜之子》《羞耻》《摩尔人的最后叹息》《她脚下的土地》《小丑萨利玛》《佛罗伦萨的神女》等。

译者 刘凯芳 (1941-2016),厦门大学外文学院英语系教授,《厦门大学学报（哲社版）》编委。长期从事英语语言文学教学与文学翻译工作。译作有《可以吃的女人》、《品彻·马丁》、《叛逆年代》《爱上浪漫》《处女与吉普赛人》、《匹克威克外传》等,另有大量的中短篇译作发表于《外国文艺》《世界文学》等刊物。