Mo’s Win Speaks Volumes 莫言的獲獎意味深長

Mo’s Win Speaks Volumes莫言的獲獎意味深長

Larry White

There’s nothing like winning a Nobel Prize in Literature to spike an author’s book sales. Mo Yan, this year’s winner, has seen his books flying off the shelves as Chinese and foreign readers clamor for copies of the new laureate’s works. Wa (《蛙》), his latest novel and just published in English, has already sold out, causing his publisher to increase the book’s print run.

Increased sales, of course, is good news for Mo Yan, and it’s also good news for China’s publishing companies which saw their share prices jump 10 percent after the Nobel Prize committee’s announcement. But what effect will Mo’s win have on Chinese literature?

Chinese literature, in general, does not have a high international profile. Contemporary authors such as Lao She (老舍), Su Tong (蘇童) and Jiang Rong (姜戎) are read in western countries, but western readers, as Howard Goldblatt says, “read Chinese fiction as a window into China, as opposed to real literature.” Goldblatt, an American, has translated many modern Chinese novels, including those of Mo Yan, and his main criticism of Chinese fiction is that it is, “too introspective, that it is not sufficiently global. It is toopreoccupied with China and has little to do with ‘ren,’ people, human beings.” Despite that criticism, inside China there has been an explosion of new writers eager to tell their stories in print or online and Mo’s international recognition will be an inspiration to them.

There is another problem, though: Will these young writers find a readership? There seems to be a decline in the popularity of “serious” fiction in favor of “fast” fiction. “Fast” fiction is like “fast” food; it’s easily consumed and easily forgotten. Novels about romance, horror and kung fu are always at the top of the best seller list. Fewer and fewer people, it seems, have the time or the inclination to sit down and engage with a serious bit of writing. But this is a problem everywhere and in every culture.

Let’s hope that Mo’s win will, at the very least, introduce new readers worldwide to the joys and rewards of good fiction and make them aware that China is a place where great writing can be found.

沒有什么比諾貝爾文學(xué)獎對作家的書的銷量有更大的刺激了。莫言，是今年的獲獎?wù)?，由于中外讀者對這位獲獎?wù)叩淖髌返寞偪裥枨螅呀?jīng)可以看見他的書不斷地飛離書架。他最新的小說《蛙》英文版剛出版就脫銷，迫使出版商增加書的印刷量。

不斷增加的銷量，當(dāng)然，對于莫言是好消息，對于看見他們的股價在諾貝爾獎公布后漲幅10%的中國出版社也是好消息。但是莫言的獲獎將給中國文學(xué)何種啟示?

中國文學(xué)，通常，并沒有得到如此高度的國際關(guān)注。西方國家也讀中國當(dāng)代作家，比如老舍、蘇童和姜戎，但是西方讀者，正如Howard Goldblatt所說，“相對于真正的文學(xué)，閱讀中國的小說是進(jìn)入中國的窗口。”Goldblatt，美國人，已經(jīng)翻譯了許多現(xiàn)代的中國小說，包括莫言的作品，他對中國小說最大的批判是，“太過于內(nèi)省，并沒有足夠的國際化。它太專注于中國，幾乎沒有涉及到‘仁’，人民，人類。”盡管有這樣的批判，中國已經(jīng)激增了一批渴望能以出版或是在線的方式訴說他們的故事的新銳作家，以及，莫言的國際認(rèn)可也將成為鼓舞他們的力量。

還有另外一個問題：這些年輕作家會擁有讀者么?似乎，“嚴(yán)肅”小說的流行率在降低而“快速”小說卻受著追捧。“快速”小說就是“快”餐，它很容易被消費(fèi)很容易被遺忘。關(guān)于浪漫、恐怖和功夫的小說總是暢銷書榜的榜首。似乎越來越少的人們有時間或者有興趣坐下來從事一些嚴(yán)肅的寫作。但這是一個存在于每個地方、沒種文化里的問題。

讓我們期待莫言的獲獎能夠，至少，向全世界的新讀者們介紹優(yōu)秀小說的樂趣和獎賞，并讓他們意識到中國是個能找到很多好作品的地方。