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| Gish Jen’s fans can take some solace when they finish one of her books: The characters might reappear in the next one they read. |
| 任璧莲的书迷在读完她的书后可以得到一些安慰：书中的角色可能会在她的下一本书中再次出现。 |
| The protagonist of her 1996 novel, “Mona in the Promised Land,” about the daughter of Chinese immigrants who converts to Judaism, first appeared as an infant in Jen’s 1991 debut, “Typical American.” A character from her 1999 story collection “Who’s Irish,” Duncan Hsu, is the focus of a story in her latest book, “Thank You, Mr. Nixon,” due out Tuesday from Knopf. |
| 她1996年的小说《应许之地的莫娜》(Mona in the Promised Land)讲述了一个中国移民的女儿皈依犹太教的故事，主人公在她1991年的处女作《典型的美国佬》(Typical American)中首次出现，是一个襁褓中的女婴。她1999年的短篇小集《谁是爱尔兰人》(Who’s Irish)中的一个人物邓肯·徐是她的新书《谢谢你，尼克松先生》(Thank You, Mr. Nixon)中一个故事的主角，该书由克诺普夫出版社出版。 |
| “It’s not like I sit down and say, well, what are they doing now?,” Jen said. “I’m interested in people changing. I myself have changed a lot.” |
| “并不是我坐下来说，好吧，他们现在在做些什么呢？”任璧莲说。“我对人们的改变很感兴趣。我自己也改变了很多。” |
| Jen, 66, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, is the author of nine books, and often explores the intergenerational dynamics of Chinese American families in her fiction. |
| 现年66岁的任璧莲是中国移民的女儿，已经出版了九本书，经常在小说中探讨华裔美国家庭的代际关系。 |
| Her nonfiction books, including “The Girl at the Baggage Claim” and “Tiger Writing,” center on what Jen sees as the fundamental difference between the “independent self” encouraged by highly individualistic societies in the West, and the “interdependent self” often found in Asian cultures. “Because I have an interdependent side — it’s not all of me, but part of me — I do have a sense of obligation to share what I know,” she said in a video interview this month. |
| 她的非虚构作品，包括《行李领取处的女孩》(The Girl at the Baggage Claim)和《老虎的写作》(Tiger Writing)，都围绕着任璧莲心目中西方高度个人主义社会鼓励的“独立的自我”与亚洲文化中常见的“依赖性的自我”之间的根本区别展开。“因为我有依赖性的一面——它不是我的全部，而是我的一部分——我确实有一种义务分享我知道的东西，”她在本月的一次视频采访中说。 |
| The title story of “Thank You, Mr. Nixon” takes the form of a lighthearted letter written to the former president — who, in this scenario, is in hell — by a woman he met during his 1972 visit to China. In other interconnected stories, some written during the pandemic, others in previous years, readers meet a woman studying immigration law, and in a later story, one of her clients. |
| 本书的标题小说《谢谢你，尼克松先生》是一封轻松的信件，由这位前总统在1972年访问中国时遇到的一个女人所写——在小说中，他身处地狱。其他相互关联的小说有些是在疫情期间写的，有些是在前几年写的，读者在小说中会遇到一个学习移民法的女性，在后面的小说中还会遇到她的一位客户。 |
| Jen discussed how China has influenced her work, what she has gotten out of nonfiction writing and why it’s important, even in fiction, to get the facts straight. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. |
| 任璧莲讨论了中国如何影响了她的作品，她从非虚构写作中得到了什么，以及为什么即使在小说中，弄清事实也很重要。以下是经过编辑的对话节选。 |
| Tell me about the timeline of this book and how it fits in with the rest of your body of work. |
| 请告诉我这本书的时间线，以及它和你其他作品之间的关系。 |
| I had gone to China in 1979 to visit family, and interestingly, even though I was not a writer then, I took extensive notes. The idea of being a writer had never crossed my mind, but I guess there was the writer in me. |
| 我在1979年去中国探亲，有趣的是，尽管当时还不是作家，我还是做了大量的笔记。我那时从来没有想过要当作家，但我想我有成为作家的潜质。 |
| I went back again to teach in 1981, teaching coal-mining engineers in Shandong. And then I went to Iowa, right after that, so I went pretty much straight from China to Iowa for my M.F.A. |
| 1981年我再次回去教书，在山东给煤矿工程师上课。然后我去了艾奥瓦州，所以我几乎是一离开中国就去艾奥瓦州攻读文学硕士。 |
| When I was writing, I wasn’t thinking that I was trying to record history or anything like that — it was just there. |
| 写作的时候，我并不认为我是在试图记录历史或者任何类似的东西——它就在那里。 |
| Then I sat down during Covid and looked at some older stories, and you could see things happening. History is always there — we’re not aware of it, of course, no one is thinking, “I can only have this business because Nixon went to China.” (Laughs) This is the moment to reflect on what’s happened, especially as we enter a new phase of our relationship with China. |
| 新冠疫情期间，我坐下来，看了一些老故事，你可以看到事情的发生。历史一直在那里——我们没有意识到，当然，没有人会想，“我之所以能做这笔生意，是因为尼克松去了中国。”（笑）这是反思过去的时刻，尤其是在我们与中国的关系进入一个新阶段之际。 |
| You’ve written about how the independent and interdependent aspects of yourself play off one another. How do you see that relationship affect your writing style or your preoccupations as a writer? |
| 你曾经写过自己的独立和依赖性是如何相互作用的。你认为这种关系如何影响你的写作风格，或者影响你作为一个作家的关注点？ |
| I am an economical and efficient writer. But I did not notice the economy in my own work. It was a professor of Chinese literature who noticed, and as soon as he said it, I was like, but of course. The Chinese love extreme economy — they’re very good in the short lyric and leaving a lot out. |
| 我是一个简洁高效的作家。但我并没有注意到自己作品中的简洁性。是一位中国文学教授注意到的，他一说这件事，我就想，当然了。中国人喜欢极度的简洁——他们非常擅长短的抒情诗，留下了很多东西。 |
| I realized that for whatever reason — though I was born in the United States, I only speak English, I am fully, quote unquote, American — that aesthetic has stayed with me, the same way that an interest in mixed tone and interest in subtlety has stayed with me. But it is interesting to see these cultural holdovers, and if I could explain to you where I got that from — well, that would be another book. |
| 我意识到，不管出于什么原因——虽然我出生在美国，我只说英语，但我只是，所谓的“美国人”——那种审美一直伴随着我，就像对混杂的语气和微妙事物的兴趣一直伴随着我一样。但是，看到这些文化留在我身上的东西是很有趣的，如果要解释我是从哪里得到它们，那可能需要再写一本书了。 |
| What kinds of stories did you hear from your family when you were growing up? |
| 在你成长的过程中，你从家人那里听到过什么样的故事？ |
| It was quite a project getting established in the United States, and there was not a lot of time for storytelling. I don’t remember one minute of my childhood being dedicated to anything but getting through the day. My parents were not of an autobiographical cast of mind — in the world that you and I inhabit, it’s very important to self-narrate so that others can know you. But for them, there was a privileging of the unspoken — if something is important, you definitely don’t talk about it. It’s quite the reverse of the way that things work here. |
| 在美国安身立命实在是一个相当大的工程，没有太多时间讲故事。在我的童年里，我不记得有任何一分钟用来专门做什么事情，都是在想怎么度过这一天。我的父母不是那种能够讲出自己故事的性格——在你和我生活的世界里，自我叙述很重要，这样别人才能了解你。但是对他们来说，不讲出来的事情更重要——如果有些事很重要，你肯定不会拿出来说。和这边的做法正好相反。 |
| I did try to get some stories out of my mother. She didn’t say a lot. But occasionally she would tell more than she meant to. |
| 我确实试图从我妈妈那里探到一些故事。她没有说太多。但有时她说的话比她原本想说的还多。 |
| Many writers, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, resist the expectation that they are “spokespeople” for whatever community they seem to represent. But you, at least in your nonfiction, seem more than willing to take on this explanatory role. |
| 许多作家，尤其是那些来自边缘化背景的作家，如果别人觉得他们可以代表某个群体，他们往往会拒绝成为“代言人”的期望。但你似乎更愿意承担这个解释性的角色，至少在你的小说里是这样。 |
| I think some people are afraid that if you take on this role, whether it’s as a nonfiction writer or as a “cultural ambassador” of some kind, that it will stick. But I feel more comfortable with it. |
| 我认为有些人担心，如果承担了这个任务，无论是作为非虚构作家还是作为某种“文化大使”，会难以脱身。但对我来说这样更舒服。 |
| Also, I am established as a fiction writer — if my first book had been nonfiction, I don’t know if I could have moved out so easily. I’ve emerged from writing nonfiction not feeling stuck, but with a feeling of freedom. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons I wrote “The Resisters.” I went off in a very different direction. And now here I am, back on turf that maybe would seem more obviously Gish Jen. Then we’ll see what happens after that. So I think the nonfiction has helped me as a writer. |
| 而且，我已经成为一名小说家——如果我的第一本书是非虚构类的，我不知道我是否能轻松脱身。我脱离非虚构写作时没有困顿感，反倒有一种自由的感觉。我确信这就是我写《抵制者》(The Resisters)的原因之一。我走了一个非常不同的方向。而我现在回到了我的地盘，可能更像是属于任璧莲的地盘。然后我们就看看以后会怎么样吧。所以我认为非虚构类写作帮助了我成为一名作家。 |
| Many of your stories revolve around the differences in perspectives between generations — including how they view class and race. Do you ever worry about how your characters will be received by readers, particularly in a time of increased violence against Asian Americans? |
| 你的许多故事都围绕着几代人的观点差异——包括他们如何看待阶级和种族。你有没有担心过读者是否喜欢你笔下的角色，尤其是在针对亚裔美国人的暴力行为增加的时候？ |
| One of the problems that minority writers face is: How many writers are there? If it’s just you, you’ve got to be pretty careful. As times change, and there are more voices, you can relax a little. But there is still a little voice in the back of my head that says, “I will go forth with what I feel to be true, but I must also be cognizant of how it may be read, and I must disarm the reader if I can.” My humor is a big part of that. |
| 少数族裔作家面临的问题之一是：有多少其他作家？如果只有你一个人，你必须非常小心。随着时代的变化，声音越来越多，你可以放松一点。但是我的脑海里仍然有一个小声音在说：“我会带着我觉得真实的东西去写，但我也必须认识到它可以被如何解读，如果我可以的话，我必须消除读者的敌意。”我的幽默是其中很大一部分。 |
| Now there’s enough out there that we can write whatever it is that we need to write. Some of it will be flattering and some of it will be unflattering, but all of it will be entirely human. |
| 现在有足够多的题材，我们可以写任何我们需要写的东西。有些会讨人喜欢，有些会不讨人喜欢，但所有这些都将完全是人的本性。 |
| Your new book encompasses the 1970s through the present day. How do you see this book fitting in with other accounts of the time it covers? |
| 你的新书的时间线横跨1970年代至今。你如何看待这本书与它所涵盖年代的其他叙事的吻合性？ |
| Though it’s fiction, there’s a lot that is factually accurate, and I do feel a responsibility, especially when I am talking about arenas where there’s not a strong record, that if I was there, it’s important to get the facts straight: Were there mosquito nets or were there no mosquito nets? Did the ceiling fans rotate or not? |
| 虽然是虚构的，但有很多事实是准确的，我确实感到一种责任，尤其是当我谈到一些场合，而这些场合没有很好地被记录，如果我在那里，弄清楚事实至关重要：那里有蚊帐还是没有蚊帐？吊扇是不是在转？ |
| As best I can, I do try to nail those facts down. But in the end, I do see all those facts — all the very good work done by journalists and historians — I see them as the strings of the piano. It’s their job to make the strings and make sure they’re in tune. It’s my job to make the music. |
| 我确实试图尽我所能确定这些事实。但最后，我确实看到了所有这些事实——记者和历史学家所做的所有出色工作——我将它们视为钢琴的琴弦。他们的工作是制作琴弦并确保它们的音准正确。我的工作是将音乐弹奏出来。 |
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