中國優秀小說這麼多，為何這本更容易征服世界？

最新 10-03

寫在前面

2015年，劉慈欣寫的科幻小說《三體》獲得了世界科幻文學最高獎雨果獎，他是第一個獲此殊榮的亞洲作家。能以一己之力打入西方科幻文學界，受到歐美讀者的肯定和歡迎，並為中國科幻作品贏得了西方世界的重視，劉慈欣的作品無疑是強大的。

但我們都知道，由於不同語言文化之間的巨大隔閡，中國的優秀文學作品總是難以在西方世界受到認可，那為什麼唯獨《三體》能獲得如此大的成功？難道《三體》就是中國最優秀的文學作品，沒有之一嗎？這顯然不可能。實際上，其成功或許與科幻小說這種文體的迷人特質息息相關。到底是什麼特質呢？看完下面劉慈欣和《三體》的故事，或許你會有一個滿意的答案。

When he was a schoolboy, Liu Cixin』s favourite book was Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne. He found the book hidden in an old box that once belonged to his father. 「This very book turned me into a sci-fi fan.」 Liu says.

劉慈欣還在上學的時候，最喜歡看的書是儒勒·凡爾納的《地心遊記》。他發現這本書被藏在曾屬於父親的一個舊盒子里。「正是這本書把我變成了一個科幻迷。」劉慈欣說。

Now 53, Liu is a science-fiction writer of some renown, both in China and in the English-speaking world. His novel The Three-Body Problem won a Hugo award in 2015. His sequel, The Dark Forest, was published in English in 2015, and the third book Death』s End, has just been translated and released in the UK.

現年53歲的劉慈欣是一位科幻小說作家，在中國和英語國家都頗有名望。他的小說《三體》在2015年獲得了雨果獎。其第二部續作《黑暗森林》的英文版於2015年出版，而第三部《死神永生》也已被翻譯成英文，剛剛在英國出版。(編註：英文原文發表於2016年12月。)

《死神永生》英文版

In 1970s, science fiction was translated widely into Chinese. With this came a suddensurge(激增) of Chinese authors writing in the genre—and Liu wanted to be one of them. But instead of studying literature, he got a job as a power-plant engineer in Yangquan. But what looks like a career diversion was entirely strategic: the stability of his career meant he could write, he says.

20世紀70年代，西方科幻小說被大量翻譯成了中文，隨之突然爆發了一場中國作家創作科幻小說的熱潮。劉慈欣也想成為其中一員。但他並沒有去研究文學，而是在陽泉的一個發電廠找了份工作，當了工程師。這看上去好像是南轅北轍，實際上卻完全是很講求戰略的一步：有了一份穩定的工作就意味著他可以寫作了，劉慈欣說。

「For about 30 years, I stayed in the same department and worked the same job, which was rare among people of my age. I chose this path because it allowed me to work on my fiction,」 he says. 「In my youth, when I tried to plan for the future, I had wished to be an engineer so I could get work with technology while writing sci-fi after hours. I figured that if I got lucky, I could then turn into a full-time writer. Now looking back, my life path has matched my design almost precisely. I believe not a lot of people have this kind ofprivilege(榮幸).」

「我在同一個部門同一個崗位幹了大概有30年，這在我的同齡人中間是非常少見的。我選擇走這條路是因為這樣我就能寫小說了，」他說，「年輕那會兒我試圖規劃未來的時候，我就曾想過以後當工程師，這樣我就能幹與技術有關的工作，同時在下班後寫寫科幻小說。我盤算著如果幸運的話，我到時可以變成全職作家。現在回頭看看，我走的人生道路跟我規劃的幾乎完全一致。我覺得並不是很多人都能有這個福分。」

His first novel, The Devil』s Bricks, came out in 2002, but it wasn』t until 2006 that he had his breakthrough, The Three-Body Problem. Initially serialised in the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World, the novel takes its title from a physics question in orbital mechanics and contains threeintertwining(纏繞在一起的) plots, set respectively during 1971, in the mid-2000s and on a distant world in a three-sun system.

他的第一部長篇小說是《魔鬼積木》，早在2002年就出版了，但直到2006年發表《三體》之後(編著：這裡指的是第一次發表時間，正式作為書出版是在2008年)，他才取得了突破。這部小說最初是以連載的形式刊登在中文雜誌《科幻世界》上。小說的名字源自軌道力學裡的一個物理問題，情節方面包含三個相互交織的故事，背景分別設定在1971年、2005年前後和一個擁有三個太陽的遙遠世界。

《三體》英文版

Seven years after its initial publication, The Three-Body Problem was brought to a western audience by Tor Books in New York in 2013. It was translated by the Boston-based author Ken Liu. In his translator』s note, Ken writes: 「The act of translation involves breaking down one piece of work in one language andferrying(運送) the pieces across agulf(鴻溝) to reconstitute them into a new work in another language. When the gulf separating the two is as wide as the Pacific Ocean … the task can bedaunting(令人畏懼的). The Chinese literary tradition shaped and was shaped by its readers,giving rise to(引起) differentemphases(重點)and preferences in fiction compared to what American readers expect.」

《三體》第一部小說最初發表七年後的2013年，紐約的托爾出版社將《三體》介紹給了西方讀者。小說由居住在波士頓的作家劉宇昆翻譯成英文。在譯者序中，劉宇昆寫道：「翻譯就是把由一種語言寫成的作品拆散，再把這些碎片運送到鴻溝的那一邊，好把它們重新組裝成由另外一種語言展現的新作品。當兩種語言的隔閡猶如太平洋一般寬廣時，翻譯的任務就變得艱巨無比。中國的文學傳統影響了讀者，讀者反過來也影響了中國的文學傳統，從而導致中國讀者對於小說的品味和偏好跟美國讀者對小說的期待有所不同。」

What western readers expect of Chinese science fiction is a curious issue. Western eyes have a tendency to view China as adystopia(反烏托邦), or full of 「eastern」mysticism(神秘主義). But Liu says it』s a mistake to think that Chinese sci-fi doesn』t share commontropes(比喻) with its westernequivalents(相等物). 「We can safely say that all themes once explored in the American and European sci-fi genre have found their manifestation in the Chinese counterpart—things like space exploration, alien contact, artificial intelligence, and life science. Problems of modern development are alsoaddressed(處理), like environmentalhazards(危險) and the negative effects coming from new technologies. Yet Chinese sci-fi does have its own unique themes as well, such as the attempt to re-deduce(推論) and re-display the ancient history of China from a sci-fi angle.」

西方讀者對中國科幻小說懷著怎樣的期待是一個引人好奇的問題。西方讀者總是傾向於視中國為一個不那麼盡如人意的國家，或是一個瀰漫著「東方」神秘色彩的地方。但劉慈欣說，要是認為中國的科幻小說與西方的科幻小說沒有共通的隱喻內涵，那可就錯了。「我們可以放心大膽地說，歐美科幻小說探討過的所有主題都已經在中國科幻小說中找到了相應的展現，比如太空探索、外星人接觸、人工智慧和生命科學等等。現代發展過程中的問題，比如環境的危害因素和新技術帶來的弊端，在科幻小說中也有涉及。不過，中國的科幻小說的確也有自己獨特的主題，比如試圖從科幻的角度重新演繹、重新展現中國古代的歷史。」

《黑暗森林》英文版

The Three-Body Problem was the first full-length Chinese sci-fi work to be translated into English, just two years ago. But a wide andburgeoning(快速發展) school of sci-fi writing dates back to as far back as 1978, with the publication of short story Death-Ray on the Coral Island by Tong Enzheng, in China』s prestigious literary magazine People』s Literature.

就在兩年前，《三體》成為首部被完整譯成英文的中文科幻小說。但中國其實早在1978年就掀起了一股聲勢浩大的科幻小說創作熱潮，當時中國著名的文學雜誌《人民文學》刊載了童恩正的短篇小說《珊瑚島上的死光》。

Liu says that a national obsession with sci-fi began around 1983. 「Some of the works even sold as many as four million copies. There were even debates on whether sci-fi ought to belong to the domain of science or of literature; Chinese authors made effort to pull it back to its literary origin, attempting to change the way that sci-fi had been treated as a mere tool fordisseminating(傳播) scientific knowledge.」

劉慈欣說，1983年前後，中國開始出現了一股全民科幻熱。「有些作品甚至賣出了400萬冊。甚至還有關於應將科幻小說歸為科學還是文學的討論。中國作家努力地去回歸其文學本源，試圖改變科幻小說曾被視為僅僅是傳播科學知識的工具的命運。」

Liu remainsmildly(輕微地) surprised by the success of The Three-Body Problem outside China. 「All we had hoped for was just to let American readers become aware that there is sci-fi in China. Now that it has been embraced by readers in the UK and the US, it supports an idea I once had: sci-fi as a literary vessel is the most global, the most universal [storytelling], with the capability to be understood by all cultures. Sci-fi novels are concerned with problems faced by all of humanity. Crises in sci-fi mostly threaten humanity as a whole. This is a unique and treasurabletrait(特徵)inherent(生來就有的) in the genre—that the human race is perceived as a singleentity(實體), undivided.」 Liu says.

劉慈欣仍對《三體》在海外獲得的成功略感驚訝。「我們之前只是希望美國讀者能夠知道中國也有科幻小說。現在，英國和美國的讀者已經欣然接受了這一點。這佐證了我曾提出的一個看法：科幻小說作為一種文學載體是最全球化、最普及化的[敘事方式]，能被所有文化群體理解。科幻小說探討的是全人類共同面臨的問題，其中展現的那些危機大多威脅著全人類。科幻小說這一文學流派天生就有一個獨特、寶貴的特質——它把人類看作是一個統一的、不可分割的整體。」他說。