把文革写进童话的曹文轩 人性价值观永不过时

Beijing — Sunshine and playtime are not the hallmarks of Cao Wenxuan’s stories for children. Instead, there are mass starvation and displacement, flooding, plagues of locusts, and mental and physical disabilities.

北京——阳光和游戏不是曹文轩儿童故事的标志。相反，他的故事里不乏饥荒、逃荒、洪水、蝗虫灾害，还有精神疾病和残疾。

Yet Mr. Cao, 62, is among the most beloved writers in China. Last month, he became the first Chinese author to receive the Hans Christian Andersen Award, regarded as the most distinguished international honor for children’s literature. He shaRed the prize, handed out every other year, with the German illustrator Rotraut Susanne Berner.

不过，62岁的曹文轩是中国最受喜爱的作家之一。上个月，他成为首位获得国际安徒生奖(Hans Christian Andersen Award)的中国作家。他与德国插画家罗特劳特·苏珊·贝尔纳(Rotraut Susanne Berner)分享了这一奖项。该奖被认为是最著名的国际儿童文学奖，每两年颁发一次。

“Cao Wenxuan’s books don’t lie about the human condition,” the International Board on Books for Young People said in announcing the award. “They acknowledge that life can often be tragic and that children can suffer.”

“曹文轩的书没有掩饰人类的处境，”国际儿童读物联盟(International Board on Books for Young People)在公布这一奖项时说，“它们承认，生活可能时有悲剧，儿童可能遭受苦难。”

At the core of Mr. Cao’s stories are his experiences growing up in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu in the 1950s and ’60s, an era of social upheaval and political tumult throughout China.

曹文轩的故事的核心是20世纪五六十年代他在东部沿海省份江苏长大的经历。当时整个中国正经历社会和政治动荡。

One recent morning in his spacious, book-lined apartment in the Haidian district here, he said his memories of those experiences continued to be his greatest asset.

前不久的一个上午，在他位于海淀区的摆满书籍的宽敞公寓里，曹文轩说，对那些经历的记忆仍是他最大的财富。

“China has given us so many heartbreaking stories,” he said. “How can you avoid writing about them? I can’t sacrifice my life experience in order to make children happy.”

“中国发生了那么多令人心碎的故事，”他说，“你怎么能避而不写呢？我不能为了让孩子们高兴而牺牲自己的人生经历。”

In his own childhood, he said, there was not much homegrown children’s literature. In China then, the concept of literature for children was relatively new, dating to the early 20th century, when translated stories by foreign children’s authors began to appear along with vernacular children’s works like the fairy tale “The Scarecrow” by Ye Shengtao and “Letters to Young Readers” by Bingxin.

他说，在自己的童年时期，没有很多本土儿童文学。在当时的中国，儿童文学还是个相对较新的概念，只能追溯到20世纪初，当时外国儿童文学作品的译本开始和本土儿童文学一起出现，后者包括叶圣陶的童话《稻草人》和冰心的《致小读者》。

Through his father, an elementary school principal, Mr. Cao said, he read some of those stories, as well as Soviet children’s literature and Chinese modern literature. He says Lu Xun, a leading writer and social critic, had the greatest influence on him.

曹文轩说，多亏身为小学校长的父亲，他得以读到这样一些故事以及苏联儿童文学和中国现代文学。他说，鲁迅对他的影响最大。鲁迅是一位重要的作家和社会批评家。

As Mr. Cao approached adolescence, political tensions in China were escalating, culminating in the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. Schools were closed for several years.

曹文轩快要进入青春期时，中国的政治局势越来越紧张，在1966年至1976年的文化大革命时期达到混乱巅峰。学校停课好几年。

The young Mr. Cao traveled the country as part of the dachuanlian, a movement in which young activists were encouraged to meet and spread the message of revolution. But as the student groups known as the Red Guards rampaged, wreaking havoc on the lives of intellectuals, officials and others, Mr. Cao said he was one of many students who held back.

年幼的他参加大串联，在全国各地旅行。但他说，随着红卫兵肆意破坏知识分子、官员以及其他人的生活，他和很多其他学生都停止了参与。

“I was only 12 or 13 at the time, so we didn’t do much,” he said. “We weren’t violent.”

“那时我只有十二三岁，所以我们基本没干什么事，”他说，“我们并不暴力。”

“All we did was wear red armbands and write dazibao,” he added, referring to the “big-character posters” that spread political messages during the period.

“我们只是戴着红袖章，写大字报，”他补充道，在那个时期，“大字报”被用来传播政治信息。

Before long, though, Mr. Cao returned to Jiangsu and resumed his classes. As part of the larger upheaval, some of the top Chinese language and literature teachers in nearby Suzhou and Wuxi had been sent to work at his rural school.

不过，不久之后，曹文轩返回江苏，继续上课。作为更广泛的社会动乱的一部分，附近苏州和无锡的一些顶级中国语言文学教师被送往他所在的农村学校工作。

As a result, he said, “The Cultural Revolution years were the best education I received.”

结果，“在文革那些年，我受到了最好的教育”，他说。

Later, as the movement was winding down, he enrolled at Peking University, where he is now a professor of Chinese language and literature. He published his first short story for children in the late 1970s and has not stopped writing since. By his own count, his publications number more than 100 works: novels, academic texts, short stories, essay collections and picture books.

后来，文革渐渐平息，他被北京大学录取。现在，他是该校的中国语言文学教授。他在20世纪70年代末发表了自己的第一个短篇童话，之后从未停止写作。据他自己估算，他共出版了100多部作品，包括小说、学术文章、短篇故事、文集和图画书。

The chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution form the backdrop for many of his stories. His 2005 book “Bronze and Sunflower,” for example, concerns the friendship of a girl, Sunflower, who follows her father from the city to the countryside, where he has been sent to do hard labor, and Bronze, a boy unable to speak whose parents are impoverished villagers.

文革那个动乱的年代是他很多故事的背景。比如，他2005年的作品《青铜葵花》讲述了女孩葵花和男孩青铜之间的友谊。葵花跟随被劳教的父亲从城市来到农村，青铜不会说话，父母都是贫穷的村民。

“The children went to school as usual, and read their books as usual, but the beautiful rise and fall of their voices as they read out loud got weaker and weaker until they were no longer capable of reading aloud,” reads one passage in the English translation by Helen Wang. “People were worried. They were sweating with anxiety. When the hunger was at its worst, they thought about gnawing on stones.”

书中有这样一段话：“孩子们照样上学，照样读书。但朗朗的、此起彼伏的、充满生机的读书声，已经大大减弱了。孩子们想将课文读响，但却就是读不响。瘦瘦的肚子，使不上劲，让人很着急，一着急，还出虚汗。饿到最厉害时，想啃石头。”

Mr. Cao insists that the Cultural Revolution is “merely a setting, not the main subject” of his books. Still, some say his straightforward descriptions of life then are needed now more than ever. In schools today, children are taught only officially approved versions of what, for many of their parents and grandparents, was an intensely formative and frequently traumatic time.

曹文轩坚称，文革“只是”他的书的“背景”，不是“主题”。不过，有人说，他对生活的直白描述比以往任何时候都更有必要。如今在学校里，关于文革，孩子们只能听到官方批准的描述。但是对大部分父母和祖父母来说，那是重要的人生转折点，是一个充满创伤的年代。

“So much history from that period has been distorted, which is why it’s important for children to know about the past,” said Wu Qing, a retired professor in Beijing who was a jury member selecting the Andersen award. “Cao writes about this period with humanity, and he doesn’t include any political slogans. He writes from his own experience.”

“那个时期的很多历史被歪曲了，所以孩子们了解过去的真实情况很重要，”国际安徒生奖评委、北京退休教授吴青说，“曹文轩从人性角度描绘那个时期。他没有提到任何政治口号。他从自己的经历出发去创作。”

Today, children’s literature is a large and extremely profitable industry in China. Mr. Cao and other prominent children’s authors, like Yang Hongying and Shen Shixi, have benefited from the rapid expansion of the middle class and a growing obsession with children’s education.

如今在中国，儿童文学是一个非常有利可图的大产业。曹文轩和其他著名儿童文学作家，比如杨红樱和沈石溪，受益于中产阶级的迅速膨胀以及对儿童教育越来越强烈的痴迷。

Mr. Cao’s novel “The Grass House,” for example, is estimated to have sold over 10 million copies in China. Four of the top 10 richest Chinese authors last year wrote literature for children or young people, according to the newspaper China Daily.

比如，曹文轩的小说《草房子》估计在中国售出逾1000万册。据《中国日报》称，去年中国最富有的十位作家中有四位是儿童文学或青少年文学作家。

Although Mr. Cao has won several important prizes at home, his work has not been without controversy. Among other things, he has been criticized for promoting outdated gender stereotypes: Boys in his stories are often bigger and stronger, and girls are weaker and more prone to tears.

虽然在中国获得了几项重要奖项，但曹文轩的作品并不是没有引起争议。比如，有人批评他宣扬过时的模式化性别观念：在他的故事中，男孩往往更高、更强壮，女孩往往更柔弱，更爱哭。

Mr. Cao was quick to dismiss the criticism. “It’s the same in Western children’s literature,” he said.

他很快反驳了这种批评。“西方儿童文学也是这样，”他说。

But as he has grown older and more experienced, he said, he has become firmer in his belief that, above all, children’s literature should provide “a good foundation for humanity and a correct and accurate moral outlook.”

不过，随着年纪增长，阅历更丰富，他更加坚信，儿童文学首先应该“为人性和正确的道德观打好基础”。

That is why, he said, he will continue to write about growing up in China during the Mao years, even if that time feels far away to many children.

他说，所以他将继续讲述关于在毛泽东时代的中国长大的经历，尽管那个年代似乎离很多孩子非常遥远。

“The world is always changing,” he said. “Fashion trends change from day to day, but the fact of people wearing clothes doesn’t change.”

“世界永远在变，”他说，“时装潮流天天在变，但人要穿衣服这个事实不会变。”

“That’s what I’m interested in, the continuity,” he added. “It doesn’t matter what the setting is; universal values and humanity always show through.”

“我所感兴趣的是那种持续性，”他还说，“背景不重要；普遍的价值观和人性永不过时。”