BBC推薦：4月必讀書單

我們跟隨BBC文化頻道的推薦，為大家編譯了4月份不容錯過的十本好書。從超現實主義短篇小說到對全球十二棵樹的觀察記錄，本月你該把這些書放到你的書架上了。

Michel Stone, Border Child邁克爾•斯通 《邊境小孩》

In Stone's first novel, The Iguana Tree, Héctor makes the risky border crossing from Mexico into the US and finds a good job in South Carolina. When his wife Lilia follows him, she is separated from their infant daughter Alejandra. Border Child begins several years later, back in their home village in Oaxaca, where both of them mourn their Alejandra, fearing she is dead. Then comes a message that they might be able to find her. As Lilia prepares for the birth of their third child, haunted by the consequences of her actions, Héctor sets off on a search that leads to a possibility neither had considered. Stone makes palpable the vulnerabilities and exploitation of Lilia and Héctor, hard-working parents seeking a better future for their family. (Credit: Doubleday)在斯通的第一部小說《鬣蜥樹》中，赫克托從墨西哥冒險跨越邊境來到美國，之後在南卡羅來納州謀得一份好工作。赫克托的妻子莉莉婭在跟隨他時，被迫和他們年幼的孩子阿萊杭德娜分開。幾年後，當赫克托和妻子回到他們在瓦哈卡的家鄉，為可能已經死去的孩子阿萊杭德娜悲傷時，《邊境小孩》的故事由此展開。這時，有消息傳來說他們或許能找到阿萊杭德娜。在莉莉婭準備生育第三個孩子時，赫克托對妻子懷孕帶來的後續影響很是苦惱，於是他動身去探尋阿萊杭德娜的下落，由此遇到了以前從未設想過的事情。通過描寫莉莉婭和赫克托為了家庭的美好未來而辛苦奮鬥的過程，斯通讓讀者真切感受到了這對父母身處弱勢深受剝削的境地。（來源：雙日出版社）

David George Haskell, The Songs of Trees大衛•喬治•哈思克 《樹之歌》

Haskell makes repeated visits to a dozen trees around the world. 「The forest presses its mouth to every living creature and exhales,」 he writes in the Amazonian rainforest in Ecuador, a place of unrivaled plant diversity. There he climbs to the crown of a giant ceiba tree at least 150 years old and traces its connections to plant, animal, bacterial and fungal life. He visits an olive plantation in Jerusalem, and tracks seasons of new growth after a green ash falls on the Cumberland plateau in Kentucky. On New York's Upper West Side he wires a Callery pear planted above the subway, describing how the city's sounds affect the tree's growth (「when a plant is shaken, it grows more roots」). Each acutely observed essay is resonant as a poem.(Credit: Viking)哈思克多次前往觀察分佈在世界各地的十二棵樹木。厄瓜多的植物多樣性極其豐富，在這裡的亞馬遜熱帶雨林里，他寫道「森林裡所有的生物都散發出自己的氣息」。他還在這裡爬上了一棵巨型木棉樹的樹冠，這棵樹至少有150歲樹齡。他記錄了這棵樹與其他動植物、細菌還有真菌的聯繫。在耶路撒冷，他去參觀當地的一家橄欖種植園。在肯塔基州的昆伯蘭高原，他記錄下一顆洋白蠟樹種子紮根后在各個季節的生長情況。在紐約上西區，他將電線繞在一棵長在捷運上方的豆梨樹上，以此記錄城市的聲音對豆梨生長的影響（例如「當樹受到搖晃時，它會長出更多的樹根」）。每一篇觀察敏銳的散文都像詩歌一樣朗朗上口。（來源：維京出版社）

Nick Joaquin, The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic尼克•華奎因 《有兩個肚臍的女人和熱帶哥特故事集》

For the centenary of his birth comes the first US publication of a compilation of work from Filipino writer Nick Joaquin, including his best-known stories and the 1966 play A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. Joaquin's writing is laced with references to his country's colonial history, Catholicism and pre-Christian rituals. The 「two navels」 in the title story refer to symbolic ties to Spanish and American colonial periods. (The once-heroic father in the story, who chooses exile in Hong Kong over American occupation, is overcome with despair when he finds his ancestral house in Dinondo destroyed.) May Day Eve and The Summer Solstice dramatise the lure of pagan celebrations (in the latter, Dona Lupe is transformed after joining dancing village women: 「her eyes brimmed with moonlight, and her mouth with laughter」). (Credit: Penguin)在華奎因誕辰一百年的時候，美國第一次出版了菲律賓作家尼克•華奎因的作品集，其中包括一些知名的小說以及1966年出版的劇本《作為菲律賓人的藝術家肖像》。華奎因在寫作時會融入自己國家的殖民歷史、天主教和基督教誕生以前的禮制儀式。小說書名里的「兩個肚臍」象徵著西班牙和美國殖民時期的關係。（小說里，曾經十分英勇的父親，在美軍佔領家鄉之後選擇流落到香港，但在發現位於Dinondo的祖屋被摧毀后陷入了絕望。）在五朔節前夕和夏至，異教徒們會舉辦盛大的慶祝活動。（夏至慶祝活動上，盧皮夫人加入當地婦女的跳舞行列之後發生了變化：「她的眼睛里閃爍著月光的銀輝，嘴角也揚起了笑容」）。（來源：企鵝出版社）

Lesley NnekaArimah, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky萊斯利•奈卡•亞麗瑪 《當人從天而降的時候意味著什麼》

From the Nigerian-born, Minneapolis-based Arimah comes a story collection full of dazzlers. Light, in which a father taking care of his 11-year-old daughter in Nigeria while her mother is in the US pursuing her MBA discovers he wants to preserve her 「streak of fire」, won the 2015 African Commonwealth Prize. In Who Will Greet You at Home, a National Magazine Award finalist after publication in The New Yorker, an assistant hairdresser creates a yearned-for baby out of hair, only to discover its insatiable appetites. In the dystopian title story, a finalist for the 2016 Caine Prize, a woman who specialises in calculating grief faces the question 「What would happen if you couldn't forget, if every emotion from every person whose grief you'd eaten came back up?」 (Credit: Riverhead Books)作者亞麗瑪出生於奈及利亞，居住在美國明尼阿波利斯。她寫了一本充滿光怪陸離元素的故事集，並獲得了2015年非洲聯邦獎。在故事《光》中，父親在妻子去美國攻讀工商管理學碩士時，獨自待在奈及利亞照顧他們11歲的女兒，他發現他想要保護女兒的「火花」。《誰會在家裡迎接你》在《紐約客》發表后入圍國家雜誌獎，書中的一位美髮師助理用頭髮創造出一個自己渴望的嬰孩，卻發現這個嬰孩慾壑難填。在一個入圍了2016凱恩文學獎的反烏托邦標題的故事中，一位總是在計算各種悲傷的女人直面這個問題：「如果你無法忘記從每個人表情中吸收的悲傷，那會發生什麼？」（來源：河源出版社）

Richard Bausch, Living in the Weather of the World理查德•鮑什 《生活在世界大環境之下》

These 14 flawless new stories from a master craftsman deal with betrayals, distances and unspoken family conflict. In The Same People, as a couple married for decades prepare to end their lives, the wife says, 「I wish we'd had children.」 The young Memphis painter in The Lineaments of Gratified Desire finds his engagement disrupted when he is commissioned by a wealthy 83-year-old to paint a nude portrait of his 23-year-old bride-to-be. Two Iraq war veterans drink cognac with a Vietnam vet who owns a Memphis bar; Veterans Night ends in tragedy. As the gloomy narrator of Map-Reading a gay man estranged from his family who is meeting his half sister on a windy, rainy day, puts it, 「this was life in the world: getting yourself drenched even with an umbrella.」 (Credit: Knopf)這14篇完美的全新故事出自一位文壇巨匠之手，他善於描寫背叛、隔閡以及其他難以言說的家庭矛盾。在《相同的人》一文中，一對已經結婚幾十年的夫婦準備結束他們的生命時，妻子說「我們當初要是有個孩子就好了」。而在《心滿意足的模樣》一文中，來自孟菲斯的年輕畫家被一位83歲的富翁指派，要求他給自己23歲的未婚妻畫一幅裸體像，二人的婚約因此被擾亂。在《老兵之夜》一文中，兩名參加過伊拉克戰爭的老兵同一名越南老兵一起喝白蘭地，這名越南老兵在孟菲斯擁有一家酒吧，故事最後以悲劇收尾。《讀地圖》一文中，故事的講述者是一位憂鬱的同性戀，被自己的家庭疏遠，還在既颳風又下雨的天氣里遇見了自己同父異母的姐妹，他說「這就是這個世界上的生活：即使你撐著雨傘，你還是會被淋濕。」（來源：諾夫出版社）

David Owen, Where the Water Goes大衛•歐文 《水都去哪了》

The New Yorker staff writer Owen examines the origins, scope and current state of the Colorado river in the American West that supplies water to more than 36 million people, irrigates six million acres of farmland, and powers two of the country's largest hydroelectric plants. Over the last century the river's water has been 「over-allocated,」 Owen writes; this imbalance has been exacerbated by the drought in the West. He brings us to key spots along the river, from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, the Imperial Valley, and the Salton Sea. He describes struggles with water shortages, and solutions that may arise in the future, including desalinization, diverting other rivers, and cloud seeding. Where the Water Goes is an eloquent argument for addressing the impact of human inhabitants on the natural world. (Credit: Riverhead Books)《紐約客》特約撰稿人歐文考察了美國西部科羅拉多河的源頭、流域和現狀。這條河流為3600多萬人提供水源，灌溉600萬英畝農田，而且還為美國最大的兩座水電站供能。歐文寫道，過去一個世紀里，這條河的水資源已經被「過度使用」。美國西部的旱情更是加劇了這一不平衡性。他介紹了沿河的幾個主要地點，包括大峽谷、拉斯維加斯、帝王谷以及沙爾頓海。他在書中描述了未來可能會出現的缺水問題及其應對方法，包括淡化海水、其他河流改道以及人工降雨。《水都去哪了》是為解決人類居住者對大自然影響而提出的有力論述。（來源：河源出版社 Riverhead Books）

Martha Cooley, Guesswork瑪莎•庫利 《猜測》

Cooley spends a 14-month sabbatical from her life in Brooklyn in the medieval village of Castiglione del Terziere with her Italian husband, Antonio Romani, a fellow writer and translator. There she comes to terms with the deaths of eight dear friends within the past decade. Her mother, nearing 90, is becoming increasingly frail. Her father suffers from dementia. These accumulated losses, she writes "have upended me." Cooley describes her daily life with Antonio, the feral cats and bats and villagers they encounter. She muses on time, mortality and ambition. Midway through her break, she realises she has dwelt more upon endings than on beginnings – a new novel, a new marriage. In these lyrical essays, Cooley brings us along vicariously to feel time loosen its grip, allowing a renewing self to emerge. (Credit: Catapult)庫利從她在布魯克林的生活中抽身出來，和她的義大利丈夫安東尼奧•羅馬尼一起在Castiglione del Terziere（地名）的中世紀村莊里度過了一個長達14個月的假期。她的丈夫也是一名作家兼翻譯家。過去十年裡，她有八位摯友去世，在那裡她開始接受他們的死亡。她的母親快90歲了，身體越來越虛弱。她的父親患有痴呆症。她寫道，這些不斷失去的經歷「讓我不堪重負」。庫利描述了她和安東尼奧的日常生活，他們遇到的野貓、蝙蝠還有村民。她會思索時間、生死和人生抱負的意義。在休假的過程中，她意識到相比於開始一件事，像是一部新小說或者婚姻的開端，她以前更看重結尾。庫利的抒情散文讓我們產生共鳴，感覺到時間放慢腳步，讓自己重獲新生。（來源：Catapult）

Leonora Carrington, The Complete Stories利奧諾拉•卡林頓 《完整故事集》

Carrington, the surrealist painter, was also a writer of strangely dark and unearthly short stories, collected here for the first time (and including three previously unpublished tales) – those in French are translated by Kathrine Talbot, those in Spanish by Anthony Kerrigan. Born in Lancashire on the day the US declared war on Germany, Carrington ran off to France with Max Ernst at 19. When he was interned, she became unhinged and ended up in an asylum, given the pharmaceutical equivalent of shock treatment. Witness to cruelties and terrible disruptions of reality, Carrington wrote stories filled with fluid creatures caught somewhere between animal, vegetable, mineral and human. One narrator sends a hyena in her place to her debutante ball; another visits a nearby house to discover her neighbors are long dead, possibly vampires. Like her paintings, Carrington's stories are hauntingly original. (Credit: Dorothy)卡林頓是一位超現實主義畫家，同時也是一名從事奇異黑暗和靈異短篇小說寫作的作家。本書首次集合了這些短篇小說，其中包括三篇以前從未發表的故事。該書法語版由卡特琳•塔爾博特翻譯，西班牙語版由安東尼•凱里根翻譯。美國對德宣戰的那一天，卡林頓出生在蘭開夏郡。19歲時，卡林頓和馬克斯•恩斯特一起逃往法國。馬克斯被關押后，卡林頓精神錯亂，最終被送到精神病院接受相當於休克治療的藥物治療。由於親身見證了現實的殘酷和混亂，卡林頓筆下的故事充滿了多變的角色，他們介於動物、植物、礦物和人類之間。一個故事的講述者在她的成人禮舞會上收到了一條鬣狗，還有的人在家附近發現她的鄰居早就已經死了，很可能是吸血鬼。像她的畫作一樣，卡林頓的短篇故事也同樣新穎令人難以忘懷。（來源：Dorothy）

Anne Garreta, Not One Day安妮•加里塔 《沒有一天》

「There's only one key to unlock the secret of our subjectivity: desire,」 writes French author Garreta, a member of the Oulipo school, which sets structural constraints on literary composition. The narrator of this short novel, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan, in its first English translation, commits to writing five hours a day for a month, recounting memories of lovers past. The goal: 「not one day without a woman.」 More than a year later, she has written a dozen portraits. There's *B, whose attractiveness is 「a super acute mental intensity」, pursued with uncertainty one night in Rome, and *E, who turns seductive after a boring academic symposium. These encounters and others unfold as Garreta pursues her playful task of 「confession, or how to scrape the bottoms of mirrors」. Not One Day won France's Prix Médicis. (Credit: Deep Vellum)法國作家加里塔寫道：「解開我們內心世界秘密的鑰匙只有一個，那就是慾望。」加里塔是烏力波流派（Oulipo，「潛在文學工場」的縮寫）的一員，該流派在文學作品創作上設定了形式限制。這部短篇小說的首版英文翻譯是艾瑪•拉馬德從法語版本翻譯而來，故事的講述者承諾連續一個月每天寫作五小時，敘述對過往戀人的回憶。她的目的是：「每天都有女人相伴。」一年多后，她寫出了十二個人物形象。*B想要在羅馬尋找一夜情，其魅力是「超級敏銳、洞察一切的內心」。*E參加完無聊的學術研討會後變身成性感的人。加里塔追求的是有趣的「坦白，或找出事情的真相」，這些遭遇和其他故事據此展開。《沒有一天》獲得法國美第奇獎。（來源：Deep Vellum出版社）

Adam Kirsch, The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century亞當•基爾希 《全球小說：21世紀世界的寫作》

Award-winning critic Adam Kirsch achieves a fresh take on world literature in this collection of essays about eight global writers who encompass six languages and five continents. What unites these eight, Kirsch argues, 「is the insistence on the global dimension not just of contemporary experience, but of contemporary imagination.」 The new migrant novel is one of the most significant literary expressions of the 21st Century. In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah and Mosin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the US is 「a stage of life rather than a final destination」. Examining these plus Orhan Pamuk's Snow, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, Haruki Murakami's IQ84, Roberto Bolano's 2666, Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels and Houllebecq's The Possibility of an Island, Kirsch gives hope for 「the capacity of fiction to reveal humanity to itself」. (Credit: Columbia Global Reports)屢次獲獎的評論家亞當•基爾希在這部全球八位作家的散文集中用新穎的角度審視了世界文學。這八位作家來自五個大洲，涵蓋了六種語言。基爾希認為，將這八位作家集合在一起的「是對國際化的當代體驗以及當代想象力的堅持。」新移民小說是21世紀最重要的文學形式之一。 在奇瑪曼達•恩戈齊•阿迪奇埃的《大美妞》和莫辛•哈米德的《拉合爾茶館的陌生人》中，美國只是「一個人生的舞台，而不是終極目的地」。通過這些書，再加上奧罕•帕慕克的《雪》、瑪格麗特•阿特伍德的《羚羊與秧雞》、村上春樹的《IQ84》、羅貝托•波拉尼奧的《2666》、埃萊娜•費蘭特的《那不勒斯四部曲》和韋勒貝克的《一座島嶼的可能性》，基爾希對「小說揭示人性的能力」充滿希望。（來源：哥倫比亞全球報告）

英文來源：BBC翻譯：陶佳琪、王藝澄（日報網愛新聞iNews譯者）編審：丹妮、董靜