The terrorist of John Updike’s title is eighteen-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, the son of an Irish American mother and an Egyptian father who disappeared when he was three. Devoted to Allah and to the Qur’an as expounded by the imam of his neighborhood mosque, Ahmad feels his faith threatened by the materialistic, hedonistic society he sees around him in the slumping New Jersey factory town of New Prospect. Neither Jack Levy, his life-weary guidance counselor at Central High, nor Joryleen Grant, his seductive black classmate, succeeds in diverting Ahmad from what the Qur’an calls the Straight Path. Now driving a truck for a local Lebanese furniture store—a job arranged through his imam—Ahmad thinks he has discovered God’s purpose for him. But to quote the Qur’an: Of those who plot, God is the best.
约翰·厄普代克一九三二年生于美国宾夕法尼亚州希灵顿。一九五四年毕业于哈佛学院，后在英国牛津的拉斯金绘画和艺术学校学习一年。一九五五至一九五七年间供职于《纽约客》杂志，自一九五七年起定居马萨诸塞州。厄普代克著有五十多部作品，其中包括短篇小说集、诗集和评论集。作品曾获美国国家图书奖、普利策奖、欧·亨利奖等奖项。