Food of the Gods：the mythology of the Tawo of Irala and classic mythic thought ■簡介 Professor Dezsö Benedek’s new book, Food of the Gods has arisen from the author’s cultural anthropology field-work conducted among an Austronesian value lies in its endeavor to make accessible for academic research the mythology of the Tawo, a curiously anachronistic insular society. The author does not only build an ingenious and challenging theoretical framework around Shiapen Mitozid, the mythical hero of the Tawo, but also presents the primary material: the text of the myth (both in the original and in translation) recorded by the author on Irala, as well as a glossary of the language. The extensively cited sources from ancient works provide the author with a firm standing-point for formulating his theoretical concept convincingly elucidated through his sensitive analysis. Benedek presents his case with enthusiasm and panache. His arguments, some of them complex, are invariably clear-and often deliciously clever. Food of the Gods is a complex and erudite book not only presenting the author’s own findings but it also provides primary material pivotal to the subject-matter of the book. Thus the value of the book is significantly enhanced. Food of the Gods seems especially suitable to be used as a basis for further research in the fields of cultural anthropology and comparative mythological studies.<南天書局> Dr. Dezsö Benedek was born, and grew up in Transylvania, Romania. He was educated in Hungarian, Romanian and German, and earned his undergraduate degree from Babes-Bolyai University in Philology. To escape the communist dictatorial regime of his country, in 1978 he managed to leave Romania. After some time spent in an Italian refugee camp, he was granted an American immigrant visa and entered the States as a refugee on parole. While he worked as a communication attendant and interpreter for the United Nations Development Corporation, he also taugh German, Russian and Japanese in several different schools in New York City. He completed his doctoral degree in 1988 at Pennsylvania State University and National Taiwan University, in Comparative Literature and Cultural Anthropology. For the past three decades he has been teaching at the University of Georgia at Athens, where he was also the director of the Asian Language Program.