César Aira, The Little Buddhist Monk & The Proof

塞薩爾•艾拉《小和尚》和《證據(jù)》

 

Two distinctly different novellas, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor, show the range of this Argentine author of more than 90 books, known for playful experimentation, narrative tension and bite. In the first, a Korean monk meets a French photographer obsessed with "culturally charged spaces" and his wife. He offers to become their guide to Buddhist temples. Soon it seems he's ushering them into a parallel world and they may not be able to find a way back. In The Proof, two punk lesbians try to pick up a 16-year-old girl walking near Plaza Flores in Buenos Aires. With ice cream, witty interrogation and a supermarket heist the two gradually pull her into their orbit. Aira has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. (Credit: New Directions)

阿根廷作家塞薩爾•艾拉的《小和尚》和《證據(jù)》由尼克•凱斯特翻譯，這兩本風(fēng)格迥異的小說顯示了作者寬泛的題材涉獵，艾拉的小說超過90部，以創(chuàng)意有趣、敘事富有張力和感染力著稱。在《小和尚》中，一個(gè)韓國(guó)僧人遇到了癡迷于“文化空間”的法國(guó)攝影師和他的妻子。他提議做向?qū)麄內(nèi)シ鸾趟聫R。很快，這位僧人似乎正把他們帶進(jìn)一個(gè)可能找不到出路的平行空間里。在《證據(jù)》中，兩個(gè)女同小混混試圖在布宜諾斯艾利斯的弗洛雷斯廣場(chǎng)上搭訕一名路過的16歲少女。冰淇淋、機(jī)智的套話和一場(chǎng)超市搶劫案將讓兩人慢慢將少女拉入了她們的生活軌道。艾拉已經(jīng)入圍布克國(guó)際文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)

 

Charmaine Craig, Miss Burma

夏爾曼•克雷格《緬甸小姐》

 

When Louisa takes the stage to compete in the Miss Burma competition in the mid-1950s, it's not immediately evident how complicated her lineage is. Her Jewish father Benny was serving as a British customs officer in 1939 when he first spotted her mother Khim, a member of the Karen ethnic minority persecuted for centuries by the Bamar majority. When the Japanese occupied Burma during World War Two, the couple fled to the east to find shelter with Khim's Karen community. Benny is imprisoned, and Khim does what she must to survive. In 1948, after independence, they both support the Karen leaders in what evolves into a decades-long civil war. Craig draws from her own family history for this riveting account of the treacheries, fractures, and courageous acts of wartime. (Credit: Grove Press)

上世紀(jì)50年代中期，當(dāng)路易莎站在舞臺(tái)上競(jìng)選緬甸小姐時(shí)，并沒有馬上發(fā)現(xiàn)她的血統(tǒng)有多么復(fù)雜。她的猶太人父親是一名英國(guó)海關(guān)官員，1939年，父親本尼第一次遇見母親金。金是克倫族人，克倫族受緬甸主體民族緬族的迫害。二戰(zhàn)期間日本占領(lǐng)緬甸時(shí)，這對(duì)夫妻和克倫族人逃往緬甸東部尋找避難之地。本尼被囚禁，金不得不想辦法生存。1948年緬甸獨(dú)立后，在長(zhǎng)達(dá)數(shù)十年的內(nèi)戰(zhàn)中，這對(duì)夫婦都支持克倫族領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人?？死赘裢ㄟ^描寫自己家族的歷史，生動(dòng)講述了戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)時(shí)期的背叛、分裂以英勇的故事

 

Benjamin Taylor, The Hue and Cry at Our House

本杰明•泰勒 《我們家的嘈雜聲》

 

One morning Taylor, then a sixth grader in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas has the honour of shaking the hand of the President of the United States, an "Apollo" with "copper-coloured hair and blue eyes". A man who is obviously "indestructible". That afternoon the teacher announces that a great man had died in Dallas today. "The fresh knowledge that followed… was a discovery of history not as what happened in the past but as the current we rode," Taylor recalls. The year that John F Kennedy was assassinated is the year in which Taylor, who describes himself as "a repellently good boy like most of my kind, Jewish and going-to-be homosexual", is "yanked from the random floating mental life of childhood and propelled into youth." His account is a precise and eloquent coming-of-age. (Credit: Penguin)

一天早晨，在家鄉(xiāng)德克薩斯的沃斯堡，當(dāng)時(shí)上六年級(jí)的泰勒有幸和“褐發(fā)藍(lán)眸、外形俊美的”美國(guó)總統(tǒng)握手。這是一個(gè)看起來“堅(jiān)不可摧”的美男子。那天下午，老師宣布，一位偉人于當(dāng)日在達(dá)拉斯逝世。泰勒回憶道：“這個(gè)新知識(shí)點(diǎn)揭示的歷史不是過去發(fā)生的事情，而是當(dāng)時(shí)我們正經(jīng)歷的。”泰勒稱，“自己和大多數(shù)猶太人一樣是一個(gè)叛逆的好孩子，有同性戀傾向。” 肯尼迪被暗殺的那一年，他的“精神世界突然從順其自然的童年被迫進(jìn)入青年。”他描寫了一個(gè)真實(shí)而生動(dòng)的關(guān)于成長(zhǎng)的故事。