作家名片 | 品读阿乙创作，在故事里随意行走
近年来，中华文化“走出去”的影响力不断扩大，在全球文化多元化发展日益兴盛的背景下，中国文化译研网(CCTSS)联合中国作家协会《小说选刊》杂志社，启动“新世纪中国当代作家、作品海外传播数据库”项目，将100位中国当代优秀作家的简介、代表作品以及展示作家风采的短视频翻译为10种语言，集结成1000张中国作家名片向全球推介。千张“作家名片”将鲜明地向世界宣告：我是中国作家，我在进行中国创作。
此种形式和规模是中国故事走向世界的一大创新，会让世界更加全面、客观、公正地了解中国优秀作家作品，同时也是打通中国文化走向世界的“最后一公里”。
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阿乙，男，原名艾国柱。1976年11月出生于江西瑞昌，有五年的警察生活经历，后来担任过报纸编辑、文学杂志《天南》执行主编。著有长篇小说《早上九点叫醒我》《下面，我该干些什么》，短篇小说集《鸟，看见我了》《灰故事》《春天在哪里》，随笔集《寡人》《阳光猛烈，万物显形》。作品曾发表于《GRANTA》，小说被翻译英、法、意、瑞典等七个语种十五个品种出版，并被《华尔街日报》《晚邮报》等媒体书评或访谈介绍。曾获《人民文学》年度青年作家奖、华语文学传媒大奖最具潜力新人奖、蒲松龄短篇小说奖、书店文学奖年度作品奖。被选为《人民文学》“未来大家Top20”、《联合文学》“20位40岁以下华文作家”。
阿乙来自南方小城，他笔下的小城人物蕴含着他的深刻理解，是真正有灵魂的人物。他喜欢称自己为“一个讲述犯罪故事的作家”。诗人北岛这样评价道：“就我的阅读范围所及，阿乙是近年来最优秀的汉语小说家之一。他对写作有着对生命同样的忠诚和热情。”前《GRANTA》编辑约翰·弗里曼曾评价说：“在阿乙的作品里，我发现了一种极度镇定与怜悯的声音，是埃尔莫·伦纳德的朴素与扎迪·史密斯坚毅的叙事自信的合体。他在故事里随意行走，你会跟着他走，因为你无法抗拒。我总会被阿乙故事的克制和强烈的无我状态叹服：作者完全消失，进入了人物中。”
长篇小说《下面，我该干些什么》以第一人称自述，讲述了“我”在高考前夕杀害了一位女同学的故事。他的案件被称为“无由杀人案”，警察、法官等人一直找不到他杀人的动机。最终面对受害者母亲的压力，他说出了十分令人震惊的原因。短篇小说集《鸟，看见我了》收录了作者10个成熟的中短篇小说，是一部汇聚了荒谬的生死和宿命的小说集。一个夜晚，一个外地人在小镇上用一把小刀杀死了六个人却被无罪释放；一辆公交车爆炸，死亡20余人，现场散落着肢体残骸，而杀手身份却没有线索……
《模范青年》是一部具有自传性质的小说。“我”和周琪源同是警校毕业，周琪源是传统意义上的“模范生”，而“我”恰与其相反，但是“我们”都想逃离县城去大城市闯荡。然而周琪源依照父亲的心意在小县城扎根，并渐渐融入其中，过着规律的生活。而“我”则去郑州、北京的报社、杂志社做起了文字工作。周琪源虽然一直坚持写作，发表文章，还考取了研究生，但最终没能反抗父亲逃出县城，带着遗憾，在病中去世。
阿乙的新作《早上九点叫醒我》于2017年问世，获得南方周末2017年度图书、亚洲周刊2017年十大小说、深港书评2017年度虚构类十大好书等奖项。小说主人公宏阳曾被简单认为是亡命之徒的文盲，他利用自身的暴力优势和玩弄诈术，成为了镇上的名人，无情无义却拥有很大权威。故事是以回溯的方式展开的，作者描写了他心中逐渐消失的乡村及其人物。
阿乙 A’Yi
A’Yi. Male. With original name Ai Guozhu, A’Yi was born in Jiangxi Province’s Ruichang in November 1976. He has five years of experience working as a police officer. Later on he served as a newspaper editor and as executive editor of the literary journal Tian Nan. He has written the novels Wake Me Up at 9 am and Next, What Should I Do, the short story collections The Bird, It Saw Me, The Story of Dust, and Where is Spring, and the essay collections I, The Sovereign and Intense Sunlight, The Appearances of All Things. Some of his works have been published in Granta, and 15 of his works have been translated into seven foreign languages such as English, French, Italian, and Swedish, and published abroad, some of which have been reviewed or introduced with interviews by media outlets including The Wall Street Journal and Corriere Della Sera. A’Yi has received People’s Literature’s Young Writer of the Year Award, the Chinese Language Literature Media Awards’ Newcomer with the Most Potential Award, the Pu Songling Short Story Award, and the Bookstore Literature Awards’ Work of the Year Award. A’Yi has also been named one of the “Top 20 Future Writers” by People’s Literature, and one of the“Top 20 Chinese Language Writers under 40” by Unitas.
A’Yi comes from a small southern city. The small city characters in his writing embody his deep understanding of people in small cities. They are characters that truly possess souls. He likes to call himself a “writer who tells crime stories”. The well-known poet Bei Dao had this to say about A’Yi: “Simply judging from the scope of what I read, A’Yi is one of the most outstanding Chinese language novelists in recent years. He has a loyalty and passion for writing similar to his loyalty and passion for life.” Former Granta editor John Freeman once commented that: “In A’Yi’s works I discovered a calmness beyond measure and a voice of compassion. It is a composite of the minimalism of Elmore Leonard and the narrative confidence of Zadie Smith. He moves about freely in his stories. You end up following along with him, because you can’t resist. I always deeply admire the restraint and intense state of egolessness in A’Yi’s stories: the writer completely disappears, and enters into the characters.”
The novel Next, What Should I Do is a first person narrative that recounts a story in which “I” kill a female classmate the night before the national college entrance examination. His case is called the “murder case without a motive”. The police and judges never find out his motive for murder. In the end, in the face of pressure from the victim’s mother, he gives a shocking answer. The short story collection The Bird, It Saw Me collects ten of the author’s mature short-to-medium length short stories. It is a short story collection that gathers together absurd lives, deaths, and fates. One night an out-of-towner kills six people with a small knife in a small town, yet is deemed not guilty and released; a bus explodes killing over 20 people, the scene is scattered with limbs and debris, yet there is no trace of the killer’s identity...
Model Youth is an autobiographical short story. “I” and Zhou Qiyuan both graduate from the Police Academy. Zhou Qiyuan is a “model student” in the traditional sense, while “I” just happen to be the opposite. However, “we” both want to escape the county town and go to the big city to make a living. Eventually, Zhou Qiyuan has set up roots in the county town according to his father’s wishes, and has gradually blended in, living a structured life. “I”, on the other hand, went to write for newspapers and magazines in the big cities of Zhengzhou and Beijing. Though Zhou Qiyuan always continued writing, publishing articles, and even earned a graduate degree, in the end he was never able to resist his father and leave the county town. Never free of regret, he passed away due to illness.
A’Yi’s new work Wake Me Up at 9 am came out in 2017, and garnered awards and honors including the Southern Weekly’s 2017 Book of the Year, being named one of the Asia Weekly’s Top Ten Novels of 2017, and being named one of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Book Review’s Top 10 Best Fiction Books of 2017. The novel’s protagonist Hong Yang was once simplistically believed to be an illiterate outlaw. He utilizes his violent strengths and manipulative skills to become a famous person in the town. He is merciless, yet possesses great authority. The story unfolds in the form of a recollection, and depicts the countryside and the characters within it inside of the author’s heart that have gradually disappeared.
英文审校 | 咸慧
编辑 | 霍娟 朱贺芳
“文化互译，沟通世界”