作家莫言获诺贝尔奖青睐，将给中国文学何种启示？

Mo’s Win Speaks Volumes莫言的获奖意味深长

Larry White

There’s nothing like winning a Nobel Prize in Literature to spike an author’s book sales. Mo Yan, this year’s winner, has seen his books flying off the shelves as Chinese and foreign readers clamor for copies of the new laureate’s works. Wa (《蛙》), his latest novel and just published in English, has already sold out, causing his publisher to increase the book’s print run.

Increased sales, of course, is good news for Mo Yan, and it’s also good news for China’s publishing companies which saw their share prices jump 10 percent after the Nobel Prize committee’s announcement. But what effect will Mo’s win have on Chinese literature?

Chinese literature, in general, does not have a high international profile. Contemporary authors such as Lao She (老舍), Su Tong (苏童) and Jiang Rong (姜戎) are read in western countries, but western readers, as Howard Goldblatt says, “read Chinese fiction as a window into China, as opposed to real literature.” Goldblatt, an American, has translated many modern Chinese novels, including those of Mo Yan, and his main criticism of Chinese fiction is that it is, “too introspective, that it is not sufficiently global. It is toopreoccupied with China and has little to do with ‘ren,’ people, human beings.” Despite that criticism, inside China there has been an explosion of new writers eager to tell their stories in print or online and Mo’s international recognition will be an inspiration to them.

There is another problem, though: Will these young writers find a readership? There seems to be a decline in the popularity of “serious” fiction in favor of “fast” fiction. “Fast” fiction is like “fast” food; it’s easily consumed and easily forgotten. Novels about romance, horror and kung fu are always at the top of the best seller list. Fewer and fewer people, it seems, have the time or the inclination to sit down and engage with a serious bit of writing. But this is a problem everywhere and in every culture.

Let’s hope that Mo’s win will, at the very least, introduce new readers worldwide to the joys and rewards of good fiction and make them aware that China is a place where great writing can be found.

没有什么比诺贝尔文学奖对作家的书的销量有更大的刺激了。莫言，是今年的获奖者，由于中外读者对这位获奖者的作品的疯狂需求，已经可以看见他的书不断地飞离书架。他最新的小说《蛙》英文版刚出版就脱销，迫使出版商增加书的印刷量。

不断增加的销量，当然，对于莫言是好消息，对于看见他们的股价在诺贝尔奖公布后涨幅10%的中国出版社也是好消息。但是莫言的获奖将给中国文学何种启示？

中国文学，通常，并没有得到如此高度的国际关注。西方国家也读中国当代作家，比如老舍、苏童和姜戎，但是西方读者，正如Howard Goldblatt所说，“相对于真正的文学，阅读中国的小说是进入中国的窗口。”Goldblatt，美国人，已经翻译了许多现代的中国小说，包括莫言的作品，他对中国小说最大的批判是，“太过于内省，并没有足够的国际化。它太专注于中国，几乎没有涉及到‘仁’，人民，人类。”尽管有这样的批判，中国已经激增了一批渴望能以出版或是在线的方式诉说他们的故事的新锐作家，以及，莫言的国际认可也将成为鼓舞他们的力量。

还有另外一个问题：这些年轻作家会拥有读者么？似乎，“严肃”小说的流行率在降低而“快速”小说却受着追捧。“快速”小说就是“快”餐，它很容易被消费很容易被遗忘。关于浪漫、恐怖和功夫的小说总是畅销书榜的榜首。似乎越来越少的人们有时间或者有兴趣坐下来从事一些严肃的写作。但这是一个存在于每个地方、没种文化里的问题。

让我们期待莫言的获奖能够，至少，向全世界的新读者们介绍优秀小说的乐趣和奖赏，并让他们意识到中国是个能找到很多好作品的地方。