40年后，米蘭·昆德拉恢復了捷克公民身份

40年后，米蘭·昆德拉恢復了捷克公民身份

The novelist Milan Kundera left Czechoslovakia in 1975. He and his wife had gone to France for what was supposed to be a short stint at a university, and they did not go back. The communist government revoked Kundera's citizenship in 1979, and since then he has scarcely returned to his homeland, even after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

小說家米蘭·昆德拉于1975年離開捷克斯洛伐克。他和他的妻子去了法國，本來應(yīng)該在一所大學短暫停留一段時間，但他們沒有回去。1979年，共產(chǎn)主義政府撤銷了昆德拉的公民身份，從那以后，即便是在鐵幕瓦解之后，他也幾乎沒有回到自己的祖國。

But after 40 years, the author is a Czech citizen once more.

但40年后，這位作家再次成為捷克公民。

Czech ambassador to France Petr Drulak went to Kundera's Paris apartment last week and handed him a citizenship certificate. "For me it was very moving," Drulak told Czech Radio. "For all of us actually, it was a very emotional moment because after 40 years, Milan Kundera is a Czech citizen again."

捷克駐法國大使彼得·德魯拉克上周前往昆德拉在巴黎的公寓，向他頒發(fā)了公民證書。“對我來說，這非常感人，” 德魯拉克告訴捷克電臺。“對我們所有人來說，這是一個非常激動的時刻，因為40年后，米蘭·昆德拉再次成為捷克公民。”

Drulak said the move was a symbolic gesture, and that the 90-year-old Kundera has always remained connected to his home country, even in exile." He stayed by his convictions and identity, a profound Czech, I would say. He is really someone who is very linked to this country and he is very interested in what is going on in Czech Republic," he said.

德魯拉克說，這是一個象征性的舉動，90歲的昆德拉一直與他的祖國保持聯(lián)系，即使在流亡中也是如此。“他堅守自己的信念和身份，我想說，他是一個深刻的捷克人。他和這個國家的關(guān)系非常密切，他對捷克共和國正在發(fā)生的事情非常感興趣。”

It's not clear whether Kundera is as enthusiastic about the gesture as the Czech government is; he hasn't commented on the matter, and he no longer talks to reporters.Kundera became a French citizen in 1981, and when he does visit the Czech Republic, he reportedly goes incognito. He was awarded the Czech national literature prize in 2008, but did not attend the ceremony.

目前尚不清楚昆德拉是否像捷克政府那樣對這一姿態(tài)充滿熱情;他沒有對此事發(fā)表評論，也不再與記者交談。昆德拉在1981年成為法國公民，當他訪問捷克共和國時，據(jù)說他隱姓埋名。2008年，他被授予捷克國家文學獎，但沒有出席頒獎典禮。

Czechoslovak authorities banned Kundera's books and revoked his citizenship after the 1979 publishing in France of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. In that book, Kundera calls then-Czechoslovak President Gustav Husak "the president of forgetting."

1979年昆德拉的《笑與遺忘》在法國出版后，捷克斯洛伐克當局禁止了他的作品，并取消了他的國籍。在那本書中，昆德拉稱當時的捷克斯洛伐克總統(tǒng)古斯塔夫·胡薩克是“健忘的人”。

He is best known for his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which became an international bestseller when it was published in 1984. The story of a couple, Tomas and Tereza, takes place amidst the Soviet crackdown and the Prague Spring of 1968. Four years after the book's publication, the story was adapted for an American-made film.

他最出名的是他的小說《生命中不能承受之輕》，1984年出版時成為國際暢銷書。托馬斯和特麗莎這對夫婦的故事發(fā)生在1968年的布拉格之春和蘇聯(lián)的鎮(zhèn)壓之中。這本書出版四年后，這個故事被改編成一部美國電影。

Kundera's legacy has been complicated in the Czech Republic. Since 1989, he has written his novels in French, and Czech Radio reports that he has refused to allow anyone but himself to translate them into Czech — something he has not always opted to do. As a result, many of Kundera's later novels are not available in his mother tongue.

昆德拉在捷克共和國留下了復雜的遺產(chǎn)。自1989年以來，他的小說都是用法語寫的。據(jù)捷克電臺報道，除了他自己，他不允許任何人把小說翻譯成捷克語——他并不總是選擇這么做。因此，昆德拉后期的許多小說都沒有用他的母語。

In 2008, a Czech magazine published a report indicating that in 1950 Kundera informed the secret police about a supposed spy, who was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for 14 years. Kundera vehemently denied the claims, calling them"pure lies" and "the assassination of an author."

2008年，一家捷克雜志發(fā)表了一篇報道，指出昆德拉在1950年向秘密警察報告了一名被認為是間諜的人，那個人隨后被逮捕并監(jiān)禁了14年。昆德拉極力否認這些指控，稱它們是“純粹的謊言”和“對一名作家的暗殺”。

Last year, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš visited Kundera and his wife in Paris and offered to restore their citizenship. The author was reportedly non-committal, with the couple expressing hope that it would not require "too much paperwork."

去年，捷克總理安德烈·巴比在巴黎探望了昆德拉和他的妻子，并提出恢復他們的公民身份。據(jù)報道，作者沒有明確表態(tài)，這對夫婦表示希望不會需要“太多的文書工作”。

"In French, of course, the word 'home' doesn't exist," he said. "You have to say 'chez moi' or 'dans ma patrie' - which means that 'home' is already politicized, that 'home' already includes a politics, a state, a nation. Whereas the word 'home' is very beautiful in its exactitude. Losing it, in French, is one of those diabolical problems of translation.

“當然，在法語中，‘家’這個詞并不存在，”他說。“你不得不說‘chez moi’或‘dans ma patrie’——這意味著‘家’已經(jīng)被政治化了，‘家’已經(jīng)包括了政治、州和國家。而“家”這個詞準確地表達了它的美。在法語中，失去它是翻譯中一個可怕的問題。

You have to ask: What is home? What does it mean to be 'at home'? It's a complicated question. I can honestly say that I feel much better here in Paris than I did in Prague, but then can I also say that I lost my home, leaving Prague?

你不得不問:什么是家?“在家”是什么意思?這是一個復雜的問題。我可以誠實地說，我在巴黎比在布拉格感覺好得多，但我也可以說，離開布拉格后我失去了我的家嗎?