Launching a career as a novelist seems like an impossible dream to many ― let alone doing so in a second or third language. But that’s exactly what Yiyun Li did after she graduated from college, moving from Beijing to the U.S. to study
immunology at the University of Iowa; once there, she wound up honing her fiction-writing skills at the
prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
對(duì)許多人來(lái)說(shuō)，要做一名職業(yè)小說(shuō)家似乎就像一個(gè)不可能的夢(mèng)想，更不用說(shuō)用第二種語(yǔ)言或第三種語(yǔ)言來(lái)寫(xiě)小說(shuō)了。但這正是李翊雲(yún)所從事的工作。大學(xué)畢業(yè)后，她從北京來(lái)到美國(guó)愛(ài)荷華大學(xué)學(xué)習(xí)免疫學(xué)。一到那兒，她就興奮地來(lái)到享有盛譽(yù)的愛(ài)荷華作家工作室訓(xùn)練自己的小說(shuō)寫(xiě)作技巧。
In a
poignant essay for The New Yorker, Li, now the acclaimed author of several novels and short story collections written entirely in English, meditates on what leaving Chinese behind and embracing a new language has meant for her:
如今，李翊雲(yún)已創(chuàng)作了幾部完全用英語(yǔ)寫(xiě)成的小說(shuō)和短篇故事集，而她也成為了備受歡迎的作家。她曾在《紐約客》上刊載了一篇深刻的文章，在文中思考放棄漢語(yǔ)，使用一門(mén)新的語(yǔ)言對(duì)她來(lái)說(shuō)意味著什么：
Over the years, my brain has banished Chinese. I dream in English. I talk to myself in English. And memories—not only those about America but also those about China; not only those carried with me but also those archived with the wish to forget—are sorted in English. To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, like a crucial decision.
多年來(lái)，我的大腦已經(jīng)摒棄了漢語(yǔ)。我用英語(yǔ)做夢(mèng)，用英語(yǔ)自言自語(yǔ)。而我的記憶，不僅是那些關(guān)于美國(guó)的記憶，還有那些關(guān)于中國(guó)的記憶；無(wú)論是那些我記住的，還是那些我希望存檔并忘記的記憶都是用英語(yǔ)來(lái)分類(lèi)的。要放棄母語(yǔ)，不論是過(guò)去還是現(xiàn)在，我依然覺(jué)得像是做出了一個(gè)重大的決定。
Li writes that although she grew up in China, she’s only written professionally in English ― a fact that has caused some surprise and confusion. Though she notes it would be easy to assume that she left her home language for political reasons, as Vladimir Nabokov did, she delves into the
thicket of personal history and emotional turmoil that motivated her. “Like all intimacies, the intimacy between one and one’s mother tongue can be comforting and irreplaceable,” she writes, “yet it can also demand more than what one is willing to give, or more than one is capable of giving.”
李翊雲(yún)寫(xiě)道，雖然她在中國(guó)長(zhǎng)大，但她依然只用英語(yǔ)進(jìn)行專(zhuān)業(yè)寫(xiě)作，而這一事實(shí)也使一些人覺(jué)得驚訝和困惑。雖然她表明，人們可能很容易認(rèn)為她是因?yàn)檎卧虿欧艞壞刚Z(yǔ)的，就像弗拉基米爾·納博科夫所做的那樣，但她深入探究了那些激勵(lì)她的個(gè)人經(jīng)歷以及情緒波動(dòng)中的錯(cuò)綜復(fù)雜。“就像所有的親密關(guān)系，一個(gè)人和其母語(yǔ)之間的親密可能會(huì)使人得到慰藉，且這種親密是不可替代的，”她寫(xiě)道，“但這可能比一個(gè)人愿意給予，或者能夠給予的，需要的更多?！?/div>
聲明：本雙語(yǔ)文章的中文翻譯系滬江英語(yǔ)原創(chuàng)內(nèi)容，轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處。中文翻譯僅代表譯者個(gè)人觀(guān)點(diǎn)，僅供參考。如有不妥之處，歡迎指正。
