Middle Eastern Writers Find Refuge in the Dystopian Novel
中東作家 反烏托邦小說找慰藉
By Alexandra Alter

Basma Abdel Aziz was walking in downtown Cairo one morning when she saw a long line of people standing in front of a closed government building. Returning hours later, Abdel Aziz, a psychiatrist who counsels torture victims, passed the same people still waiting listlessly – a young woman and an elderly man, a mother holding her baby. The building remained closed.
巴絲瑪．阿布岱爾．阿濟茲一天早上走在開羅市區的街上，看到人們站在一棟關著門的政府機關前大排長龍。阿布岱爾．阿濟茲是位為受虐者提供諮商的精神醫師，她幾小時後返回，經過仍然無精打采等著的同一些人：一個年輕女子和一個老年男性，一個抱著嬰兒的母親。那棟建築門依然關著。

When she got home, she immediately started writing about the people in line and didn’t stop for 11 hours. The story became her surreal debut novel, “The Queue,” which takes place after a failed revolution in an unnamed Middle Eastern city. The narrative unfolds over 140 days, as civilians are forced to wait in an endless line to petition a shadowy authority called the Gate for basic services.
她一回到家，立刻以那些排隊的人為發想開始寫作，連寫11小時沒停筆。這個故事成為她第一部超現實小說「排隊」，情節發生在一個沒有提到名字的中東城市一場革命失敗後。敘事在140天裡舖展，平民百姓被迫在無止盡的隊伍中等候，為了獲得民生基本服務，向一個被稱為「大門」的神秘當局請願。

“Fiction gave me a very wide space to say what I wanted to say about totalitarian authority,” Abdel Aziz said in a recent interview.
阿布岱爾．阿濟茲最近受訪時說：「小說給我非常寬廣的空間，讓我能暢所欲言談論獨裁政權。」

“The Queue,” which was just published in English by Melville House, has drawn comparisons to Western classics like George Orwell’s “1984” and “The Trial” by Franz Kafka. It represents a new wave of dystopian and surrealist fiction from Middle Eastern writers who are grappling with the chaotic aftermath and stinging disappointments of the Arab Spring.
「排隊」甫由梅爾維爾出版社以英文出版，已被拿來與喬治．歐威爾的「一九八四」和法蘭茲．卡夫卡的「審判」等西方經典作品相提並論。它代表中東作家反烏托邦和超現實主義小說的新浪潮，這些作家正在與「阿拉伯之春」帶來的混亂後果和椎心失望奮戰。

Five years after the popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere, a bleak, apocalyptic strain of post-revolutionary literature has taken root in the region. Some writers are using science fiction and fantasy tropes to describe grim political realities. Others are writing about controversial subjects like sexuality and atheism, or exhuming painful historical episodes that were previously off limits.
在埃及、突尼西亞、利比亞和一些其他地方人民起義的五年後，一種陰暗、啟示錄式的後革命文學形式已在這個區域生根。一些作家利用科幻小說和魔幻比喻來描述冷酷的政治現實。另有些作家則拿一些爭議性題材來寫作，例如性別取向和無神論，或是挖掘先前不能碰觸的痛苦歷史事件。

In a literary culture where poetry has long been the most celebrated medium, writers are experimenting with a range of genres and styles, including comics and graphic novels, hallucinatory horror novels and allegorical works of science fiction.
這個地區的文學文化一向以詩為最被稱頌的媒介，如今作家們正在實驗各種不同的類型與風格，包括漫畫和繪本小說、幻覺式驚悚小說和寓言式的科幻小說作品。

“There’s a shift away from realism, which has dominated Arabic literature,” said the Kuwait-born novelist Saleem Haddad, whose new book, “Guapa,” is narrated by a young gay Arab man whose friend has been imprisoned after a political revolt. “What’s coming to the surface now is darker and a bit deeper.”
出生在科威特的小說家薩利姆．哈達德說：「已經轉離主宰阿拉伯文學的現實主義。現在浮出表面的更黑暗，也更深沉些。」他的新書「漂亮」（Guapa，暫譯，是書中一家地下同志酒吧的名稱），由一位阿拉伯同性戀年輕男子以第一人稱敘述，他的朋友在一場政治反抗運動後入獄。

Science fiction and surrealism have long provided an escape valve for writers living under oppressive regimes. In Latin America, decades of fascism and civil war helped inspire masterpieces of magical realism from authors like Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende. In Russia, the postmodern novelist Vladimir Sorokin has published disturbing and controversial futuristic novels that surreptitiously skewer the country’s repressive government.
長久以來，科幻小說和超現實主義為生活在高壓政權下的作家提供了安全閥。在拉丁美洲，幾十年的法西斯主義和內戰啟發了加布列．賈西亞．馬奎斯和伊莎貝．阿言德等作家的魔幻寫實主義傑作。在俄國，後現代主義小說家弗拉迪米爾．索羅金已出版令人不安和且具爭議性的未來主義小說，暗地譏諷這個國家的高壓政府。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/books/middle-eastern-writers-find-refuge-in-the-dystopian-novel.html

2016-06-19．聯合報．D2．紐約時報賞析．田思怡譯

說文解字看新聞 田思怡

Dystopian novel可譯為「反烏托邦小說」，utopia（烏托邦）是想像中的理想國，dystopia則是utopia的反義詞，與理想國相反，是想像中的恐怖國度，人們過著悲慘的生活。反烏托邦又可稱為反面烏托邦，敵托邦，惡托邦，絕望鄉或廢托邦。

最著名的「反烏托邦小說」就是歐威爾的「1984」，描述人們生活在受到嚴密監視的極權主義社會，「老大哥在看著你」（Big Brother is watching you）是隨處可見的標語。

卡夫卡的「審判」也是「反烏托邦小說」的代表作，主角陷入一場官司，卻不知道自己的罪名，最後被秘密處死。

文中也提到其他文學流派，包括surrealist fiction（超現實主義小說），源自法國，是一種反寫實主義、非理性的文學形式，常寫夢境和潛意識，卡夫卡的「變形記」中，推銷員一覺醒來，發現自己變成一隻巨大的蟲。

Magical realism（魔幻寫實）則是源自於拉丁美洲，代表作家是馬奎斯。

超現實主義和魔幻寫實主義都有荒誕的情節，如何區分？一般而言，魔幻寫實主義特別指拉丁美洲獨裁統治背景下產生的特殊文學形態，作家不得不用魔幻手法來表達政治訴求，常加入拉丁美洲的神話。

中東經歷「阿拉伯之春」之後，一些國家恢復專制統治，例如埃及，中東作家會藉由反烏托邦小說、超現實主義小說或科幻小說（science fiction）表達政治訴求，不難理解。

Secret Service Dreams of a New (14-Foot) White House Picket Fence
加強安全措施 白宮防護欄想長高
By Michael D. Shear

Michael Jordan, the basketball superstar, was famous for being able to jump 48 inches into the air, putting the top of his head 10 1/2 feet off the ground, well above the basket’s rim.
籃球界超級巨星麥可．喬丹因為能躍起48吋之高而聞名，讓他的頭頂離地面10.5呎，遠高過籃框。

If the Secret Service has its way, the new security fence around the White House will be about 3 1/2 feet higher than that.
如果美國特勤局心願得償，白宮周圍的新防護柵欄圍牆將比10.5呎還要高出大約3.5呎。

Nearly two years after an armed man climbed over the existing 7-foot fence around 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and ran through the front door of the White House, the Secret Service is moving aggressively to design and build a taller, stronger security perimeter. Visitors to Washington could soon see a 14-foot barrier ringing the president’s home.
在一名武裝男子攀過賓州大道1600號附近現有7呎柵欄，並穿越白宮前門事件發生近兩年後，美國特勤局正在積極設計和建造一個更高、更強的安全邊界。造訪華府的遊客可能很快就會看到一道環繞總統家的14呎高柵欄。

Pressure to move quickly is intense; fence jumping at the White House has become a regular occurrence. Two people jumped the barrier last month, including one who had stolen a woman’s purse and was hoping for a clean getaway. There was a jumper the day after Thanksgiving last year. And in 2014, officers tackled a man who had scaled the fence and run onto the North Lawn.
迅速採取行動的壓力很大，因為翻越白宮柵欄已成常見之事。有兩個人在上個月跳過柵欄，其中一個偷了一位女士的錢包，並意圖輕易逃逸，而去年感恩節的次日，也有個人翻過柵欄。2014年時，特勤官員更制伏了一個爬過柵欄並跑進北草坪的人。

“We’re trying to find that balance of security, but also keep the historic nature of the White House and keep it open for the public,” Joseph P. Clancy, the director of the Secret Service, said in an interview. “The public doesn’t want to come to the White House and see a wall where you can’t actually see it.”
特勤局局長約瑟夫．柯蘭西接受專訪時說：「我們正試圖找到安全性的平衡點，同時也保持白宮的歷史性以及維持對民眾的開放。民眾不會想來到白宮，卻見到一堵讓你無法真正看見白宮的牆。」

L. Preston Bryant Jr., the chairman of the planning commission, said he supported the idea of a 14-foot fence as a necessary security measure. But he also expressed hope that the final design for the fence would remain elegant and simple, like the building it protects.
規劃委員會主席普瑞斯頓．小布萊恩特表示，他支持以14呎柵欄作為必要安全措施的想法，但同時表示希望柵欄的最終設計仍將維持優雅簡約，一如它所保護的建築物。

“I don’t want our federal facilities to be fortresses,” Bryant said in an interview. “We have tens of millions of people from around the world who visit Washington, D.C., every year. We want them to see that our federal facilities and our government are open, transparent. We want to impress upon them the theme of freedom.”
小布萊恩特接受專訪時說：「我不希望我們的聯邦設施變成堡壘。每年有數以千萬計的人從世界各地來到華盛頓特區訪遊。我們希望他們看到我們的聯邦設施與政府是開放、透明的。我們希望能把自由這個主題深印在他們的腦海。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/us/politics/secret-service-dreams-of-a-new-14-foot-white-house-picket-fence.html

2016-06-19．聯合報．D2．紐約時報賞析．陳韋廷譯