2023布克獎決選
 
　　「Chetna Maroo這本出道之作，賽場上再無對手。」－《時代雜誌》
 
　　Gopi喪母那一年，她才11歲。為了應對這份悲痛和哀傷，Gopi的某位親戚建議父親必須找點事讓年幼的女兒們做，於是Gopi父親便將三名都才十來多歲的女兒帶至住家附近的體育中心打壁球。雖然Gopi那年真的還小，才剛能拿起球拍，卻已經充分展現了她在壁球這項競技上的天份，她成為了三姊妹中唯一留在球場上奮鬥的人。因此父親也更加嚴格地訓練她，而Gopi與姊妹們的距離越來越遠，她的生活軌跡漸漸與規律的壁球軌跡重疊：發球、截擊、發球、擊球，還有咚咚咚，迴盪不斷的打球聲。
 
　　但球場上的她，並不孤單，她有父親在側，還有對手－13歲的Ged。藉由永遠充滿活力和生命力的壁球運動，以傾聽自己喪親之痛的壓力和掙扎。作者利用優美而有韻律的文筆，讓讀者慢慢地陪著Gopi打完這場療傷的球賽。(文／博客來外文館)

Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

A taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, and a young athlete’s struggle to transcend herself.

Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo.

But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.

An indelible coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty. Western Lane is a valentine to innocence, to the closeness of sisterhood, to the strange ways we come to know ourselves and each other.