Asian literature offers some of the most beautiful prose ever written. We pick the classics all books fans should read.
亞洲文學(xué)中涌現(xiàn)出了許多動(dòng)人篇章,英國(guó)《電訊報(bào)》特挑選書(shū)迷應(yīng)當(dāng)閱讀的史上十佳亞洲小說(shuō):

【福利貼】聊你最喜歡的紅樓夢(mèng)角色——獲《紅樓夢(mèng)》英譯版!戳進(jìn)下載>>>

1、The Dream of the Red Chamber
《紅樓夢(mèng)》

Cao Xueqin (printed 1791)
作者:曹雪芹(1791年出版)

With a cast of more than 400 characters, this episodic novel written in the vernacular rather than classical Chinese tells of two branches of an aristocratic family with a tragic love story at its humane heart.
史詩(shī)般的《紅樓夢(mèng)》并非用文言文寫(xiě)的,而是采用通俗的白話文。全書(shū)中有400多個(gè)人物,以一個(gè)權(quán)貴家族的兩個(gè)分支為主線,描述了一個(gè)凄美的愛(ài)情故事,人文氣息濃厚。

2、A Fine Balance
《微妙的平衡》

Rohinton Mistry (1995)
作者:羅欣頓·米斯特里(1995年出版)

Set during the Emergency of 1970 (a period marked by political unrest, torture and detentions), Mistry is critical of then-prime minister Indira Gandhi. Four characters from very different backgrounds are brought together by rapid social changes.
故事發(fā)生在20世紀(jì)70年代,當(dāng)時(shí)的社會(huì)背景政局動(dòng)蕩、酷刑監(jiān)禁濫用。米斯特里對(duì)時(shí)任印度總理英迪拉·甘地持批判態(tài)度。書(shū)中四個(gè)人物雖背景迥異,但他們卻因?yàn)閯×业纳鐣?huì)變革而走到了一起。

3、Rashomon
《羅生門(mén)》

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1915)
作者:芥川龍之介 (1915年出版)

The author of more than 150 modernist short stories, but no full-length novels, Ryunosuke published Rashomon in a university magazine when he was just 17.
本書(shū)作者芥川龍之介一生寫(xiě)了150多篇現(xiàn)代主義短篇小說(shuō),但未涉足長(zhǎng)篇。芥川龍之介僅在17歲的時(shí)候就在大學(xué)雜志上發(fā)表了小說(shuō)《羅生門(mén)》。

4、The Thousand Nights and One Night
《一千零一夜》

Anonymous (First published in English 1706)
作者:不詳 (1706年英文首版)

Wiley Scheherazade diverts the sultan from her execution with the poetic and riddlesome adventures of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad and mystical creatures. Packing in crime, horror, fantasy and romance, it influenced authors as diverse as Tolstoy, Dumas, Rushdie, Conan Doyle, Proust and Lovecraft.
《一千零一夜》中有眾多冒險(xiǎn)故事:阿拉丁、阿里巴巴、辛巴達(dá)和一些其他神靈等,而山魯佐德也因?yàn)樗麄兊拿半U(xiǎn)故事而避免了殺身之禍。這些故事充滿犯罪、驚悚、奇幻和浪漫色彩,對(duì)托爾斯泰、大仲馬、拉什迪、柯南道爾、普魯斯特和洛夫克拉夫特等眾多作家都產(chǎn)生了深刻影響。

5、Heat and Dust
《熱與塵》(又譯作《印度之戀:一個(gè)英國(guó)女人的印度尋情之旅》)

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975)
作者:露絲·普拉瓦爾·杰哈布瓦拉 (1975年出版)

In this compelling novel by the only person to have won both the Booker Prize and an Oscar, a woman travels to India to learn the truth about her step-grandmother and her life under the British Raj of the 1920s.
杰哈布瓦拉是唯一獲得布克獎(jiǎng)和奧斯卡獎(jiǎng)兩項(xiàng)殊榮的人。這本引人入勝的小說(shuō)講述了這樣一個(gè)故事:一個(gè)女人前往印度,了解其繼母在20世紀(jì)20年代英國(guó)殖民統(tǒng)治下生活的真相。

小編注:布克獎(jiǎng)(The Man Booker Prize,或Booker Prize,又簡(jiǎn)稱(chēng)the Booker),是英語(yǔ)文學(xué)最重要的年度書(shū)獎(jiǎng)之一,從1969年開(kāi)始頒發(fā),每年頒發(fā)一次。

6、All About H Hatterr
《H·哈特爾大全》

G V Desani (1948)
作者:G·V·德薩尼 (1948年出版)

It’s the glorious mash-up of English and Indian colloquialism that makes this book, about the son of a European merchant and a Malayan lady, such a wild, whimsical delight. Anthony Burgess admired its “creative chaos that grumbles at the restraining banks”.
一名歐洲商人和馬來(lái)女子所生的兒子是本部小說(shuō)的主角,書(shū)中巧妙地融合了英語(yǔ)和印度俚語(yǔ),文筆精彩。安東尼·伯吉斯稱(chēng)贊這本書(shū)中“雖一團(tuán)糟糕但生氣勃勃,魅力涌動(dòng)四溢”。

7、The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
《奇鳥(niǎo)行狀錄》

Haruki Murakami (1994)
作者:村上春樹(shù) (1994年出版)

This labyrinthine and hallucinogenic novel gets going when Toru Okada’s cat disappears in suburban Tokyo. He consults a pair of psychic sisters who appear to him in dreams and reality. But although Murakami’s plot meanders, it never loses its pace or its humanity.
岡田亨的貓?jiān)跂|京郊區(qū)走失,小說(shuō)借此拉開(kāi)了序幕。岡田亨既而向一對(duì)亦真亦幻、擁有特異功能的姐妹詢問(wèn)貓咪的下落……村上春樹(shù)的小說(shuō)雖然情節(jié)曲折,但不失節(jié)奏之美和人文之美。

8、Spring Snow
《春雪》

Yukio Mishima (1969-71)
作者:三島由紀(jì)夫 (1969年-1971年間出版)

Before committing ritual suicide in November 1970, Mishima posted this tetralogy of novels (named after a dry lunar plain once believed awash with water) to his publisher. It’s a saga of 20th-century Japan, in which a law student imagines a school friend constantly reincarnated.
三島由紀(jì)夫把這篇四部曲發(fā)給了出版商,隨后便在1970年11月剖腹自殺。長(zhǎng)篇小說(shuō)《春雪》以20世紀(jì)的日本為背景,小說(shuō)中有一名學(xué)法律的學(xué)生不停地想象著自己的朋友一次次轉(zhuǎn)世。

9、Midnight's Children
《午夜的孩子》

Salman Rushdie (1980)
作者:薩爾曼·拉什迪 (1980年出版)

Magic realism meets postcolonial India in the ambitious, colourful and clever novel which was awarded the “Booker of Bookers” Prize. Hero Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947: the second of India’s independence and is endowed with an extraordinary talent.
本書(shū)充滿魔幻現(xiàn)實(shí)主義色彩,作品野心勃勃、豐富多彩、情節(jié)精巧,榮獲“布克中的布克獎(jiǎng)”。故事發(fā)生的背景在后殖民時(shí)代的印度,主人公薩利姆·西奈隨1947年8月15日的午夜鐘聲降臨人世、稟賦非凡,而此時(shí)也正是印度獨(dú)立的一刻。

10、The God of Small Things
《微物之神》(又譯作《卑微的神靈》)?

Arundhati Roy (1997)
作者:阿倫德哈蒂·羅伊 (1997年出版)

This intense and exquisitely written tale of fraternal twins unfolds against a backdrop of communism, the caste system, and Christianity in Kerala from the Sixties to the Nineties. “Change is one thing,” writes Roy in her Booker Prize-winning debut, “Acceptance is another”.
《微物之神》張力十足、筆觸細(xì)膩,講述了印度西南部喀拉拉邦一對(duì)雙胞胎兄妹的故事。故事發(fā)生在19世紀(jì)60年代到90年代之間,穿插了共產(chǎn)主義運(yùn)動(dòng)、種姓制度和基督教等內(nèi)容。羅伊在小說(shuō)中寫(xiě)道:“改變是一回事,接受改變是另一回事?!?/div>