Wang Wen-hsing is an internationally renowned modernist writer who has long been regarded by Taiwan writers as a bellwether of literary aesthetics. His reputation rests on his devotion to an innovative literary language and writing style, demonstrated primarily in his novels. His persistent pursuit of an ideal style has challenged standard aesthetic views of Chinese literary language and conventional reading strategies. He views writing much as he does painting, music, or any other art form: while acknowledging the importance of content, he foregrounds the form. His fictional works, therefore, are not only pieces of creative writing but also creative artworks; each word and sign should be appreciated like a musical note in a song or a brush stroke in a painting. This ideal pushes him constantly to search out a more precise method to describe a specific subject, and each new method he develops is added to the reservoir of Chinese rhetoric. Due to his peculiar approach, he writes extremely slowly. During the past three decades, he has been able to write only thirty-some characters a day. To date, he has published twenty-three short stories, one novella, three novels (the second novel is in two volumes), one one-act play, three volumes of essays, and numerous poems, prose works, translations, and pieces of criticism.
Kuo-ch'ing Tu(杜國清)born in Taichung, Taiwan. His research interests include Chinese literature, Chinese poetics and literary theories, comparative literature East and West, and world literatures of Chinese (Shi-Hua wenxue). He is the author of numerous books of poetry in Chinese, as well as translator of English, Japanese, and French works into Chinese.
Terence Russell(羅德仁)
Terence Russell(羅德仁)is an Associate Professor in the Asian Studies Center at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His early research dealt with classical Chinese literature and religion but for the past few years his interest has turned to contemporary literature in Chinese, especially the literature of Taiwan's indigenous people. Dr. Russell has a strong interest in translation and translation theory.
Shu-ning Sciban is a professor of Chinese and teaches Chinese language and literature at the University of Calgary. Her research interests include modern and contemporary Chinese and Taiwanese fiction, writing by Chinese women, Chinese diaspora literature, narratology, rhetoric, stylistics, and Chinese language. She co-edited with Fred Edwards Dragonflies: Fiction by Chinese Women in the Twentieth Century (Cornell East Asia Program, 2003) and Endless War: Fiction and Essays by Wang Wen-hsing (Cornell East Asia Program, 2011), with Lai-hsin Kang and San-hui Hong on Mandu Wang Wen-hsing [Slow reading Wang Wen-hsing] (7 volumes) (National Taiwan UP, 2013), and co-edited with Ihor Pidhainy Reading Wang Wenxing: Critical Essays (Cornell East Asia Program, 2015).
譯者簡介
Chu-yun Chen
Chu-yun Chen comes from a family with roots in Guangdong, China. Due to her father's career in the diplomatic service, she spent part of her childhood and adolescence in Sydney, Seoul, Bangkok, and Nicosia. She received an M.A. in English and American literature from National Taiwan University. She taught in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University from 1970 until her retirement in 2005. She has contributed numerous Chinese-English translations, including several short stories by her husband Wang Wen-hsing.
Michael Cody
Michael Cody has a B.A. in Film Studies from York University and an M.A. in Chinese Studies from the University of Toronto. He contributed to Dragonflies, Shu-ning Sciban and Fred Edwards'p revious anthology of short stores, and continues to pursue his interest in Asian languages and cultures.
Fred Edwards
Fred Edwards is an editor and translator who has a degree in Chinese Studies from the University of Toronto. Until his recent retirement, he edited the opinion page of the Toronto Star, where he wrote frequently about China-related issues, and he also served as an editorial advisor with Beijing Review.
Johanna Chien-mei
Johanna Chien-mei Liu is a professor of Chinese art andaesthetics at the department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, Canada. Her main research interests are philosophical aesthetics in China and the West, Chinese art theories and literary criticism, and modern Taiwanese literature.
Ihor Pidhainy
Ihor Pidhainy is an Assistant Professor at the University of West Georgia in the Department of History, as well as being the editor of the journal Ming History. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto with a dissertation on the Ming Dynasty scholar, poet, and exile, Yang Shen (1488-1559), on whom he has published several articles.
Steven Riep
Steven Riep is an associate professor of Chinese and comparative literature at Brigham Young University, where he teaches courses in modern and contemporary Chinese literature, film, and culture. He has served as head of the Chinese program and as co-director of BYU's International Cinema Program.
Terence Russell
Terence Russell is an Associate Professor in the Asian Studies Center at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His early research dealt with classical Chinese literature and religion, but for the past few years his interest has turned to contemporary literature in Chinese, especially the literature of Taiwan’s indigenous people. Dr. Russell has a strong interest in translation and translation theory and has been a regular contributor to the Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series, and was the guest editor of Issue 24 on Taiwan indigenous myths and oral literature.
Darryl Sterk
Darryl Sterk is a Chinese-English literary translator, most notably of Wu Ming-Yi’s The Man With the Compound Eyes (Harvill Secker 2013), assistant professor of translation at National Taiwan University (NTU), in the Graduate Program in Translation and Interpretation (GPTI), and a scholar of translation, currently working on the translation of the script for the film Seediq Bale (Warriors of the Rainbow) into Seediq.
Jane Parish Yang
Jane Parish Yang received her Ph.D. in Chinese from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and was an associate professor of Chinese in the Department of Chinese and Japanese at Lawrence University, retiring in 2015. She taught beginning and advanced Chinese language, traditional and modern Chinese literature, Chinese cinema, and the East Asian studies senior seminar.
目錄
Preface to the Special Issue on Wang Wen-hsing/Kuo-ch'ing Tu
「王文興專輯」前言/杜國清
Foreword to the Special Issue on Wang Wen-hsing/Shu-ning Sciban
「王文興專輯」卷頭語/黃恕寧
Fiction
The Youth Who Returned at Dusk 夏天傍晚回家的青年/Translated by Fred Edwards
Clipped Wings, a History (Excerpt)《剪翼史》(節譯)/Translated by Darryl Sterk
Essays
Autobiography 自傳/Translated by Michael Cody
Why Write? 為何寫作/Translated by Michael Cody
Garden on the Sea 海上花園/Translated by Fred Edwards
Remembering Modern Literature 現文憶舊/Translated by Fred Edwards
Collection of Spirit Thoughts 神話集/Translated by Ihor Pidhainy
Kindness, Frugality, … 一曰慈,二曰儉……/Translated by Michael Cody
Critiques
“A Dream of Foxes”: A Dionysian Story in Strange Tales from Make-do Studio 《聊齋》中的戴奧尼西安小說〈狐夢〉/Translated by Terence Russell
The Literature of “A Gentleman Dies for the One Who Knows Him” 「士為知己者死」的文學/Translated by Ihor Pidhainy
A Combined Reading of Su Shi's Poems on Viewing Huangzhou's Red Cliff 蘇子瞻黃州赤壁三構合讀/Translated by Jane Parish Yang
Film Is Literature 電影就是文學/Translated by Steven Riep
Of Journeys and Islands: Narrative Patterns in Ingmar Bergman's Films 旅途和島嶼―柏格曼的電影模式/Translated by Steven Riep
Calligraphy the Supreme Art 書法是藝術的頂巔/Translated by Johanna Chien-mei Liu
Nine Lectures on Katherine Mansfield’s “The Doll's House”(Excerpt) 《玩具屋九講》(節譯)/Translated by Chu-yun Chen
Appendix: “The Doll's House” by Katherine Mansfield
About the Translators
About the Editors
本專刊的第一部分是王文興小說的選譯,包含了二篇作品。第一篇是〈夏天傍晚回家的青年〉,此文最早發表於1960年11月,是王文興新近被發掘出來的舊作,也是編者和Fred Edwards在編輯Endless War: Fiction and Essays by Wang Wen-hsing時,收集王文興短篇小說工作中的漏網之魚。此作描寫一位剛自大學畢業的青年人,在服兵役期間的一個短暫假期中,對他與父母和心儀的舊日女同學關係的思考。此作與王文興同期作品相較,較為簡樸,但具相同的特質,都有細膩的心理刻畫,和對人生隱隱困境的摹寫。第二篇是《剪翼史》節譯,是描寫一位外籍勞工在台不幸的遭遇,經蒙受善心鄰友援助,順利返鄉的過程。《剪翼史》是剛出爐的新作,藉由一位大學教授從中年至晚年的境遇,反映了人在家庭、職場、社會可能遭逢的莫名困厄與超越之路。一如作家前兩部長篇小說,《剪翼史》中文方塊字的字形、注音符號、標點符號、圖像、符號、頁面的空白等,都被作者有意識地用為表意的手段,譯文獨創的設計,配合原文之風格,對翻譯界而言,應頗具研究價值。
本專刊的第二部分是王文興散文的選譯。王文興的散文作品數量頗大,內涵豐富。本專刊基於篇幅,選譯了六篇具傳記價值的散文。王文興的英譯散文,於此之前,有Endless War: Fiction and Essays by Wang Wen-hsing中的〈無休止的戰爭〉和〈懷仲園〉兩篇。本專刊收錄了〈自傳〉、〈為何寫作〉、〈海上花園〉、〈現文憶舊〉、〈神話集〉和〈一曰慈,二曰儉,……〉。〈自傳〉、〈為何寫作〉簡述作家生平,呈現作家專心寫作的精神。〈海上花園〉是王文興作品中較為少見的傳統抒情文體,對其幼年生活與離世的親人做了動人的緬懷。〈現文憶舊〉追憶作家在大學時期與同學創編《現代文學》的往事,記人記事記情;印刷廠老闆練達的處世之道與諸同仁的熱心編務,躍然紙上。王文興平日有記手記的習慣,具他透露,手記可代替日記,段落短小的手記比之長篇的日記,記錄起來方便省時。《星雨樓隨想》收錄了十三篇不同主題的手記,〈神話集〉是其中之一,集結了許多王文興對宗教(尤其是基督教)和奧秘宇宙探索的神思。王文興在多年研讀神學作品之後,終於皈依天主教。他對宗教信仰的意見,曾披露於天主教的刊物,但很少見諸於一般文章。〈神話集〉是此議題極其珍貴的一篇,揭露了王文興對其信仰的態度。〈一曰慈,二曰儉,……〉是王文興1987年寫給年輕人的一封信,戒傲戒貪戒爭先;自省諭人,展露作者的人生智慧,亦反映作者平日謙遜的態度。