People who Inspire us

踽踽独行时，总有那么一束光在前方

The past decade has given me time to reflect on the main cause of Lispector’s obscurity: the increasing global dominance of English. An international tongue may help tourists, but it is turning literature into a one-way street. Not only does this make life harder for contemporary writers, the situation is even worse for those, like Lispector, who can no longer speak for themselves.

這十年來我得以思考出利斯佩克托作品艱澀難懂的原因：在全球日漸取得主導權的英文。這個國際語言可以讓旅客獲益良多，卻也將文學導向單行道。這不僅讓現代作家生活更加困苦，對於像利斯佩克托這類無法發聲的已逝作家，更是一個窘境。

Writers who work in English can’t be faulted for profiting from a situation that has developed over centuries. But since we do profit from it, it’s partly up to us to try to remedy it.

在這個進行了幾個世紀的過程中，英文作家無疑大為受益。但既然我們是獲利的一方，一定程度上就有責任去補救。

In the United States and Britain, translations represent just 3 percent of the book market. In Russia, in contrast, translated titles accounted for 10.5 percent of the market in 2013; in China, they make up around 7 percent. In the Netherlands, some 75 percent of all books produced are translations, according to 2013 statistics — and about 10 percent of all general interest books sold are original, English-language versions. Not only do foreign writers face obstacles to being read abroad, then, they are being crowded out of bookstores in their own countries. The English language, like rats or kudzu, has become an invasive species.

在美國與英國，書市中只有3%的譯著。而在2013年的俄羅斯，譯著佔市場的10.5%。至於中國的比例，則在7%左右。而根據荷蘭在2013年的統計，他們有75%的書是翻譯作品，又有10%的一般圖書是直接販售英文原版的。外文作家不僅在廣泛閱讀上困難重重，也被自己國家的書店所排擠。英文就像老鼠與野葛一樣，成為侵略性的物種。

推荐阅读：

Found in Translation 《翻譯，讓文學走出單行道》 By Benjamin Moser