译语翻译三本好书推荐-英语学习日常小说

César Aira, The Little Buddhist Monk & The Proof

塞萨尔•艾拉《小和尚》和《证据》

 

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)

阿根廷作家塞萨尔•艾拉的《小和尚》和《证据》由尼克•凯斯特翻译，这两本风格迥异的小说显示了作者宽泛的题材涉猎，艾拉的小说超过90部，以创意有趣、叙事富有张力和感染力著称。在《小和尚》中，一个韩国僧人遇到了痴迷于“文化空间”的法国摄影师和他的妻子。他提议做向导带他们去佛教寺庙。很快，这位僧人似乎正把他们带进一个可能找不到出路的平行空间里。在《证据》中，两个女同小混混试图在布宜诺斯艾利斯的弗洛雷斯广场上搭讪一名路过的16岁少女。冰淇淋、机智的套话和一场超市抢劫案将让两人慢慢将少女拉入了她们的生活轨道。艾拉已经入围布克国际文学奖

 

Charmaine Craig, Miss Burma

夏尔曼•克雷格《缅甸小姐》

 

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)

上世纪50年代中期，当路易莎站在舞台上竞选缅甸小姐时，并没有马上发现她的血统有多么复杂。她的犹太人父亲是一名英国海关官员，1939年，父亲本尼第一次遇见母亲金。金是克伦族人，克伦族受缅甸主体民族缅族的迫害。二战期间日本占领缅甸时，这对夫妻和克伦族人逃往缅甸东部寻找避难之地。本尼被囚禁，金不得不想办法生存。1948年缅甸独立后，在长达数十年的内战中，这对夫妇都支持克伦族领导人。克雷格通过描写自己家族的历史，生动讲述了战争时期的背叛、分裂以英勇的故事

 

Benjamin Taylor, The Hue and Cry at Our House

本杰明•泰勒 《我们家的嘈杂声》

 

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，在家乡德克萨斯的沃斯堡，当时上六年级的泰勒有幸和“褐发蓝眸、外形俊美的”美国总统握手。这是一个看起来“坚不可摧”的美男子。那天下午，老师宣布，一位伟人于当日在达拉斯逝世。泰勒回忆道：“这个新知识点揭示的历史不是过去发生的事情，而是当时我们正经历的。”泰勒称，“自己和大多数犹太人一样是一个叛逆的好孩子，有同性恋倾向。” 肯尼迪被暗杀的那一年，他的“精神世界突然从顺其自然的童年被迫进入青年。”他描写了一个真实而生动的关于成长的故事。