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English Summary/英文概要： What if you saved a man’s life and he went on to play a leading role in one of the bloodiest revolutions of modern times?
Ted Whittlemore, a radical Australian journalist, does just that. In the late ’60s, he saves Nhem Kiry, soon to become known as ’Pol Pot’s mouthpiece’. The consequences haunt him for the rest of his days. When the Khmer Rouge take power in Cambodia, Whittlemore watches, fascinated and horrified, as the ideals he holds dear are translated into unfathomable violence. In the intervening decades, as he tries to make sense of what went wrong, it is as if Kiry’s life has become intertwined with his own.
In this gripping novel, Patrick Allington takes readers deep into the world of power politics and agents of influence. He enters the worlds of Nhem Kiry and Ted Whittlemore, and with humour, intelligence and an unfailing moral sense, brings them to life.
Figurehead is about guilt and memory, and the awful distance that separates dreams from reality. It is about those people who, as George Orwell said, are ’always somewhere else when the trigger is pulled’.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 如果你救了一个人，使他能继续在现代一场最血腥的革命中起着主导作用，你的命运会发生怎样的改变呢？
Ted Whittlemore，一名激进的澳大利亚记者，就曾有过这样的经历。在六十年代晚期，他救了Nhem Kiry一命，很快他就家喻户晓，被视为’Pol Pot’s mouthpiece’。这一影响困扰着他的余生。当红色高棉在柬埔寨夺取了政权，Whittlemore带着着迷与害怕目睹了这一切，他目睹着他所珍视的理想最终变成了深不可测的暴力。在此期间的几十年中，他试图想要弄清是什么出了差错，这一切就像是Kiry和他的生命交织在了一起。
在这部引人入胜的小说中，Patrick Allington带读者进入到一个强权政治以及时代人物起着重要影响的世界。作者进入了Nhem Kiry和Ted Whittlemore的世界，带着幽默、智慧和始终如一的道德观，使他们重现于世人。
《代表人物》是一部关于内疚、回忆以及存在于梦想与现实间的极大差距的小说；是关于一群，如George Orwell 所说的“事件发生时，总躲在他处”的人的故事。(ZXY)
Awards/获奖情况： For those of you currently looking at FIGUREHEAD, here’s a short video of the wonderful launch speech by JM Coetzee:http://www.themonthly.com.au/node/1883
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