编者按：为了更好地进行中国文学海外传播工作，让中国作品在海外被发现（Discover）、被理解（Understand）、被传播（Express），中国文化译研网（CCTSS）邀请国内资深文学主编及文学评论家，精选出近两百部短中长篇小说，形成第一期《中国当代文学作品指南》（简称“指南”），从更具权威性、价值性的角度出发，更好地向世界展示中国当代文学精品，传播中国书香。

春读书，兴味长，磨其砚，笔花香。现将“指南”中的精品文学作品以一日一推的方式向读者呈现，让我们不负春日好时光。

路遥 | 《平凡的世界》

推荐理由

《平凡的世界》是中国当代长篇小说中发行量最大的作品，堪称“茅盾文学奖皇冠上的明珠”。其受欢迎的程度在中国当代文学史、甚至在整个中国文学史上都名列前茅，不少大学生更将它列为自己最喜欢和最珍爱的文学作品。是路遥给中国文学创造的神话。

《平凡的世界》从1975年开始创作，1988年5月25日完稿。百万字长篇，是路遥创作的全景式表现中国当代城乡社会生活的小说，共三部。

小说以中国1970年代中期到1980年代中期十年间为背景，着力刻画以孙少安和孙少平两兄弟为中心的各阶层众多普通人形象。劳动与爱情、挫折与追求、痛苦与欢乐、日常生活与巨大社会冲突纷繁地交织在一起，深刻展示普通人在大时代历史进程中所走过的艰难曲折的道路。

第一版于1986年12月在中国文联出版社出版。1991年3月《平凡的世界》获第三届茅盾文学奖。《平凡的世界》是用温暖的现实主义的方式来讴歌普通劳动者的文学作品。把苦难转化为一种前行的精神动力。描写苦难的新时期作家不乏其人，但真正把苦难转化为一种精神动力的作家却并不多。这部小说在展示普通小人物艰难生存境遇的同时，极力书写了他们克服重重困难的美好心灵与坚韧不拔的奋斗精神。主人公孙少安、孙少平是挣扎在贫困线上的青年人，但他们自强不息，依靠自己的顽强毅力与命运抗争，追求自我完善。其中孙少安立足乡土，矢志改变命运；而孙少平则拥有现代知识、渴望融入城市。其故事构成了中国社会普通人人生奋斗的两极经验。

小说里表现的激情和理想主义在今天具有更广泛的意义，因为当下中国表现琐碎卑微生活的作品占据了绝对的市场，张扬理想、充满激情的作品很难找到，然而生活不可能缺少理想和激情。年青人更需要这样的情怀。大概这是它获得欢迎的本质原因所在。

Reviews

The Ordinary World, being the most widely-circulated contemporary Chinese novels, is reputed as the “gem in the crown of the Mao Dun Literature Prize”. It has ranked at the very top of current and historical popularity lists for contemporary Chinese literature, and great masses of university students regard it as their favorite and most treasured literary work. This work by Lu Yao is truly a legend in the realm of Chinese literature. Its first edition was published by China Literature and Art Federation Press in Dec. 1986, and in Mar. 1991 the novel was awarded the 3rd Mao Dun Literature Prize.

He began writing the novel in 1975 and finished it on May 25, 1988. The million-word masterpiece spans a total of three volumes, giving a panoramic depiction of contemporary life in both the city and countryside throughout China.

Through this broad span of time lasting through the mid 1970’s and 1980’s, Lu Yao portrays a myriad of ordinary people from each social strata, with the brothers Sun Shao’an and Sun Shaoping serving as the central characters. And all throughout, the novel reflects the twists and turns people go through in an era that intertwines work with love, failure with pursuit, misery with pleasure, and daily routines with mounting social pressures.

The Ordinary World eulogizes ordinary workers in a warm and realistic manner and translates misery into a motivating spiritual force. While the new age sees no lack of writers who focus on the narration of miseries, there is a lack of writers who translate miseries into a spiritual motivator. In depicting the harsh living circumstances of commonplace people, the novel endeavors to demonstrate the beauty of their souls and their undaunted will in overcoming all difficulties and challenges. The protagonists Sun Shao’an and Sun Shaoping are two young men struggling on the poverty line. But through their unyielding self-reliance and unremitting perseverance, they manage to alter their fate, realizing their self value. While Sun Shao’an determines to change his fate while staying rooted in soil of his home, Sun Shaoping possesses modern knowledge and aspires to integrate into urban society, this plot counterpoint providing a dual-reflection on the lives of many Chinese people.

The passion and idealism radiated from the novel has wide significance for today, a time when works illustrating the pettiness and humbleness of life dominate the greater part of the market, while works promoting ideals and passion are a rare sight. Honestly, how can life go on without ideals or passion? This is the very stuff life is made of, even more so the lives of our younger generations. And this could well be the reason why this book has been popular all these decades. 

作家简介

Author Profile

路遥，原名王卫国，汉族。1973年入延安大学中文系学习，开始文学创作。毕业后任《陕西文艺》（今为《延河》）编辑。1980年发表《惊心动魄的一幕》，获第一届全国优秀中篇小说奖。1982年发表中篇小说《人生》，描写一个农村知识青年的人生追求和曲折经历，引起很大反响，获全国第二届优秀中篇小说奖，改编成同名电影，获第八届大众电影百花奖最佳故事片奖，轰动全国。《在困难的日子里》获《当代》中长篇小说奖，同年加入中国作家协会。1988年完成百万字的长篇巨著《平凡的世界》，在中国文联出版社出版，获第三届茅盾文学奖。并且该书未完成即在中央人民广播电台广播。1992年11月17日上午8时20分路遥因肝硬化腹水医治无效在西安逝世，年仅42岁。

Lu Yao, whose original name is Wang Weiguo, was a Han nationality author. In 1973, he began to create works of literature while studying in the Chinese Department of Yan’an University. After graduation, he became an editor of Shaanxi Art and Literature (presently Yanhe Magazine). In 1980 Lu Yao published A Thrilling Scene which won the 1st National Best Novella Award. In 1982, he published his novella Life depicting the life experiences and pursuits of a rural educated youth. The book was so well-received that it won the 2nd National Best Novella Award while its film adaptation also became a national hit and won the Best Feature Film at the 8th Popular Movies Hundred Flowers Awards. In the Difficult Days won the Dangdai Bimonthly Novella Award in 1982 and Lu Yao joined the Chinese Writers’ Association at the same year. In 1988 he finished The Ordinary World, his million-word novel masterpiece, getting it published by China Literary and Art Federation Press and winning the 3rd Mao Dun Literature Prize. The book began broadcasting on China National Radio even before its completion. Lu Yao died, just 42 years old, at 8:20 am on 17 November 1992 in Xi’an because of cirrhosis ascites.

中文概要

Synopsis

第一部：1975 年初，贫农子弟孙少平到原西县高中读书，他自卑；后对处境相同的地主家庭出身的郝红梅产生情愫，被同班同学侯玉英发现并当众说破，与郝红梅关系渐变恶劣。后来郝红梅与家境优越的顾养民恋爱。少平高中毕业，回乡做了一名教师。但他并没有消沉，与县革委副主任田福军女儿田晓霞建立了友情，在晓霞帮助下关注外面的世界。少平的哥哥少安一直在家劳动，与村支书田福堂的女儿——县城教师田润叶青梅竹马。少安和润叶互有爱慕之心，却遭田福堂反对。经过痛苦的煎熬，少安到山西与勤劳善良的秀莲相亲并结婚，润叶只得含泪与父亲介绍的一直对她有爱慕之情的李向前结婚。这时农村生活混乱，又遇上旱灾，田福堂为了加强自己的威信，组织偷挖河坝与上游抢水，不料竟出人命。为了“农业学大寨”，他好大喜功炸山修田叫人搬家，又弄得天怒人怨。

第二部：1979 年春，十一届三中全会后百废待兴，又矛盾重重，田福堂连夜召开支部会抵制责任制，孙少安却领导生产队率先实行，接着在全村推广了责任制。头脑灵活的少安进城拉砖，用赚的钱建窑烧砖，成了公社的“冒尖户”。少平青春的梦想和追求也激励他到外面去“闯荡世界”，他从漂泊的揽工汉成为正式的建筑工人，最后又获得当煤矿工人的机遇，女友晓霞从师专毕业后到省报当了记者，他们相约两年后再会。润叶远离她不爱的丈夫到团地委工作，引起钟情痴心的丈夫酒后开车致残，润叶感到内疚回到丈夫身边，开始幸福生活。她的弟弟润生也已长大成人，在异乡与命运坎坷的郝红梅邂逅，结为夫妻。往昔主宰全村命运的强人田福堂，不仅对新时期的变革抵触，同时也为女儿、儿子的婚事窝火，加上病魔缠身，弄得焦头烂额。

第三部：1982 年孙少平到了煤矿，尽心尽力干活，从学生成了一名优秀工人。可就在孙少平与田晓霞产生强烈感情的时候，田晓霞却因在抗洪采访中为抢救灾民牺牲，后来田福军给孙少平发电报，少平悲痛不已。少安的砖窑也有了很大发展，他决定贷款扩建机器制砖，不料因技师根本不懂技术，砖窑蒙受很大损失，后来在朋友和县长的帮助下再度奋起，通过几番努力，终于成了当地领头人。没想到少安的妻子秀莲，在欢庆由他家出资一万五千元扩建的小学会上口吐鲜血，确诊肺癌。润叶生活幸福，生了个胖儿子，润生和郝红梅的婚事也终于得到父母的承认，并添了可爱的女儿。27 岁的少平在一次事故中为救护徒弟也受了重伤，英俊面容尽毁，却遇少时玩伴金波之妹表白，少平为她的前途与自己的感情选择拒绝；他们并没有被不幸压垮，少平从医院出来，面对现实，又充满信心地回到矿山，迎接他新的生活与挑战。

Volume One

At the beginning of 1975, Sun Shaoping, a poor farmer’s son with low self-esteem, goes to study in a middle school at Yuanxi County. There, he develops an affection for Hao Hongmei, who was born to a landlord’s family but was placed in the same situation as him. But his affection is discovered and made known by his classmate Hou Yuying, ruining his friendship with Hao. Later, Hao falls in love with Gu Yangmin, who comes from a rich family. After graduating from middle school, Shaoping returns to his birth place to become a teacher. But he does not lose heart and become friends with Tian Xiaoxia, daughter of Tian Fujun, deputy director of the county revolutionary committee, and with her help begins to take an interest in affairs outside their community. His brother Shao’an has been working at home all this while, simultaneously carrying an innocent affection for Tian Runye, a teacher from the county, since childhood. But their mutual love is not blessed by her father, Tian Futang. After much agonizing pain, Shao’an goes to Shanxi and marries Xiulian, a hardworking and kind girl. Runye is then involuntarily married to Li Xiangqian, a man introduced by her father whose affections have never subsided. But at this time their rural life is sheer chaos, a situation made worse by a drought. In order to consolidate his authority, Tian Futang arranges to secretly fight the community living up-river by digging holes in their dams in the middle of the night – an action that gets some villagers killed. Stirring up even more bitterness in the community is the big fuss he makes over mountain-exploding, field repairs, and booting farmers out of their original residences, doing so all under the disguised emulation of the “Dazhai Model of Agricultural Production”.

Volume Two

In the spring of 1979, everything must be rebuilt and every conflict settled following the convocation of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee. Tian Futang calls an urgent meeting with the party branch members in resistance against the production accountability system, while Sun Shao’an implements it first on the production team and then across the whole village. The quick-witted Shao’an goes to town to haul bricks, building a brick-firing kiln with his savings and becoming officially recognized as an outstanding farmer in the community. Prompted by youthful aspirations, his brother Shaoping also wants to go out and experience the world. Transforming from a drifting worker into a true-blue construction worker, he finally has an opportunity to work as a miner. His girlfriend Xiaoxia becomes a reporter for the provincial newspaper after graduating from a normal college, and they agree to meet again in two years. However, she feels no love for him, and instead leaves to work in a league party committee, causing the love-struck Shaoping to take up the bottle and eventually cripple himself drunk driving. Runye returns to him out of guilt and their happy life ensues. During this time, her brother Runsheng has grown-up and marries the ill-fated Hao Hongmei after their chance meeting out in the world. Tian Futang, who once led the whole village under an iron fist, not only resists time’s changes, but is infuriated by his children’s marriages. As an added annoyance, he is tortured by disease.

Volume Three

In 1982, Sun Shaoping arrives at the coalmine, devotes himself to the job, and transforms from a student into an outstanding worker. However, just as he and Tian Xiaoxia experience burning love for each other, the latter loses her life attempting to save flood victims while doing an interview on the event. The news of her death sent by Tian Fujun via telegraph throws Sun Shaoping into deep remorse. During this time, the brick cave built by Shao’an takes off. He decides to expand it and introduce machinery using bank loans, only to suffer huge losses thanks to an ignorant technician. But with the help of friends and the county head, he starts all over again and eventually becomes a leading figure in the area. However, disaster strikes when Xiulian is diagnosed with lung cancer after spiting up blood at a meeting celebrating their 15,000 yuan donation to the primary school for expansion. Runye lives happily and gives birth to a nice, chubby boy. Runsheng and Hao Hongmei’s parents finally approved their marriage and they have a lovely daughter. The 27-year-old Shaoping is severely injured when saving his apprentice from an accident, erasing his handsome countenance. When the Jinbo’s younger sister and childhood playmate to Shaoping confesses her love for him, Shaoping puts her down out of concern for her future and his own feelings. But these tragedies have not defeated them. Coming out of the hospital, Shaoping bravely faces his reality and returns to the coal mine with confidence. He is ready to embrace a new life with all its challenges.