张洁:我从来没有爱过一件事像热爱写作这样

来源:中国文化译研网

作者:

2018-12-21

近年来,中国文化“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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张洁,女,1937年生于北京,原籍辽宁抚顺。1960年毕业于中国人民大学计划统计系,1979年加入中国作协,现为国家一级作家、中国作家协会副主席、美国文学艺术院荣誉院士。著有散文集《爱,是不能忘记的》《世界上最疼我的那个人去了》,中短篇小说集《方舟》《祖母绿》,长篇小说《沉重的翅膀》《无字》等。张洁将写作视为“救命稻草”,从不迎合世俗眼光,坚持自己的审美风格,甚至连书籍的封面设计都亲自操刀。有多部作品被翻译成英、法、德、意等多种语言。

张洁的创作风格是深沉含蓄的,擅用抒情性叙述与哲理性议论相结合的手法来描绘人物的内心世界,也有采用调侃、反讽的手法营造种种超现实的文本景观,抒发对世界荒诞性方面的体验;近期又转而平淡超脱,呈现出另一种独特的美学风格。她不断拓展艺术表现的路径,作品以浓烈的感情和细腻的笔触探索人的心灵世界,情感真挚,优雅醇美。

张洁的成名短篇小说《爱,是不能忘记的》发表于《北京文学》1979年第11期,小说通过一位30岁未婚女青年的视角,用满含深情的语言追忆往事,展开了她的母亲与一名老干部“有情人难成眷属”的悲剧故事。小说描写了没有婚姻的痛苦爱情与没有爱情的不幸婚姻,尖锐地揭示了社会现实与传统观念对人性、人的自由的剥夺,以及在这种束缚与剥夺的语境中人的精神困境。《沉重的翅膀》是张洁的第一部长篇小说,获第二届茅盾文学奖。它被认为是“改革文学”的代表作,但更深刻之处是小说在改革发生的基层单位——工厂之上,还设置了一个更高的属于政策决策层的科层体制——重工业部,改革的阻力不仅存在于一个个工厂中,在政策决策层、官僚体制内部,思想意识的改革更难以推进。《无字》是张洁历时12载,潜心撰著的凝重恢弘的长篇力作。小说以女作家吴为的人生经历为主线,进述了她及其家族几代女性的婚姻故事,书写了社会大变革中各色人等的坎坷人生,展现了中国近百年的社会风貌,对20世纪的中国进行了独特的记录与审视,堪称一部世纪性的生命史诗。《无字》使张洁第二次摘得茅盾文学奖桂冠。张洁由此成为迄今为止中国唯一一位获得两次茅盾文学奖的作家。  

年逾古稀的张洁依然在尝试创作新风格、新题材的小说。《知在》是她的最新作品,一个披着“悬疑”外套的小说。在这部小说中张洁试图表达的是一种命运的不可掌控性,一种隔绝,以及她自己对历史的怀疑。作品传达出作家对“知”与“在”的思考,更有几分难以言说的禅意。   

 

Zhang Jie, was born in Beijing in 1937. Her family is originally from Fushun in Liaoning Province. In 1960, she graduated from the Faculty of Planning and Statistics at Renmin University. In 1979, she joined the China Writers Association. She has been recognized by the government as one of the nation's most eminent authors. She is the Vice-President of the China Writers Association and an honorary fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her most well-known works include the essay collections Love Cannot Be Forgotten and The Person Who Most Cared for Me is Gone; the novella collections The Ark and Emerald; as well as the novels Heavy Wings and Without A Word. Zhang Jie views writing as a source of salvation. Rather than pandering to popular tastes, she has upheld her own style and set of aesthetic criteria — going so far as to personally design the covers of her books. Her works have been translated into languages such as English, French, German and Italian.

 

Zhang Jie's writing is full of implicit meaning. She combines sentimental narration and philosophical musings as a means of evoking her characters' inner world, as well as creating various surrealist scenes that mock the absurdity of human experience. Lately, however, Zhang has developed a more understated and transcendental style, further demonstrating her originality as an author. She has continually pushed the boundaries of artistic expression. With great sentiment and attention to detail, her works delve into the inner world of human beings. She has been praised for her emotional authenticity and elegant writing style.

 

The short story that began Zhang Jie's rise to fame, Love Cannot Be Forgotten, was published in the November 1979 issue of Beijing Literature. In this story, a 30-year-old unmarried woman reflects on the past in highly sentimental terms and recounts the star-crossed love affair between her mother and a retired official. The story describes both the pain of a love without marriage and the pain of a marriage without love. At the same time, it astutely reveals the way that modern realities and traditional values deprive people of their liberties, evoking their distress within contexts of oppression. Heavy Wings is Zhang Jie's first novel, for which she won the 2nd Mao Dun Literature Prize. This novel is considered to be an emblematic work of "reform literature". It not only evokes the post-Cultural Revolution reform at a grassroots level (i.e. in factories) — it also offers insights into the lives of policy- and decision-makers at that time, taking us inside the Ministry of Heavy Industry. Resistance to the reform did not only exist in factories — it was equally, if not more difficult, to change mentalities at the decision-making level and in bureaucracies. Without a Word is a rich and expansive work that Zhang Jie devoted herself to writing over the course of twelve years. The novel uses the life experiences of its protagonist, the female author Wu Wei, as an underlying plotline as it recounts the her and several other generations of women in her family's marriages. In doing so, it evokes the arduous lives of people of different backgrounds during a time of intense social change. In this work of epic proportions, Zhang Jie documents and reflects on China's social transformations over the course of the last century. Without a Word earned Zhang Jie a second Mao Dun Literature Prize. To this day, she remains the only author in China to have won this prestigious award on two occasions.

 

Even though Zhang Jie is in her 70s, she is still attempting new styles and subject matter in her stories. Her latest work, Knowing Presence, plays with the genre of suspense novels. In this novel, Zhang Jie attempts to evoke an inability to control fate, a sense of isolation, as well as her own doubts concerning the past. The novel conveys the author's Zen-like reflections on the notions of "knowing" and "presence".     


责任编辑:罗雨静