Reading of Peter Handke（ShenZhen）
Literary Dialogue: Shenzhen and Vienna
Reading of Two Cities — International Reading Union
Date: 9 November 2019
Venue: Shenzhen Book City, Shenzhen, China
As part of the Reading of Two Cities project organised by the International Reading Union, writers, scholars and literary translators gathered in Shenzhen for a discussion spanning Chinese and German-language literature.
The discussion explored the recurring pattern of Nobel Prizes in Literature awarded to German-language writers in years ending in nine, the work of Herta Müller and Peter Handke, and the ways literature crosses linguistic and cultural boundaries. Participants also discussed themes of love and death in literature, the relationship between inner life and reality, and the question of how literature connects writers and readers.
The event brought together different literary traditions and perspectives, from the poetry of Paul Celan to contemporary Chinese fiction and the work of writers such as Yu Hua and Mo Yan.
Date: 9 November 2019
Venue: Book City, Shenzhen
Guests
Petra Martincova, literary translator and teacher
Ji Zhang, literary researcher and professor
Guillaume Basset, poet and organiser of book-related events
Nanxiang Xiang, writer and professor
Kui Han, writer and organiser of cultural projects
"9" in the Nobel Prize and German-Language Literature
1919 — Carl Spitteler
1929 — Thomas Mann
1999 — Günter Grass
2009 — Herta Müller
2019 — Peter Handke
Zhang Ji studied comparative literature and wrote articles about Herta Müller.
Guillaume said that he greatly admired Herta Müller, who had moved from Romania to Berlin, and had also helped organise a dialogue between Müller and Mario Vargas Llosa. The Nobel Prize winners of 2009 and 2010 represented Spanish-language and German-language literature, each reflecting the distinctive characteristics of its own cultural environment.I attended that event, too. Although I could not understand Czech, I went to experience the discussion for myself. I could still catch something of what they were talking about, including authoritarianism and power.
I was there that day, too. Although I could not understand everything being said, I could feel the atmosphere.
Petra Martincova was introduced to Chinese literature by her father. When she was a student, he gave her a book about Lu Xun. She later translated works by Yu Hua. During her stay in Beijing, she visited Lu Xun's former residence and a cemetery for foreign missionaries near Chegongzhuang, where two Czechs were buried, along with Matteo Ricci.
Love and death are themes in poetry that are rarely discussed explicitly, yet appear so frequently.
Nanxiang brought an excerpt from The Sunflower of a Woman, a novel about love.
Paul Celan is famous for the observation that French poetry seeks love, while German poetry seeks truth. Although we could not read Guillaume's French poems, we could appreciate their sounds and rhythms.
When Peter Handke visited China in 2016, he responded to Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize in Literature by saying that "literature is for reading". In 2014, he had also said that the Nobel Prize in Literature should ultimately be abolished, describing it as "a hypocritical chase after literature".
Elfriede Jelinek, the Austrian writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004, once said that Handke deserved the prize.
[The original text here reads: "Two hundred and nineteen, fifteen years after that." The intended meaning needs to be clarified before this sentence can be edited.]
Nanxiang held a book entitled Essay on Tiredness. From the perspective of traditional literary genres, it is neither a novel nor an essay, yet it is also both a novel and an essay. It is like modern art that crosses media and categories.
The Nobel Prizes awarded to Gabriel García Márquez in 1982 and Mo Yan in 2012 brought magical realism into focus. Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Yan Lianke, Su Tong, Ning Ken, and other Chinese writers came to mind. Yu Hua once said that literature should deal with the relationship between the heart and reality.
Should literature serve as a bridge between readers and authors?
二O一九年十一月九日，在这个以九为结尾的日子。
南翔回顾了诺贝尔文学奖里的"九"：
1919年瑞士 卡尔•施皮特勒Carl Spitteler，
1929年德国 托马斯•曼 Thomas Mann，
1999年德国君特·格拉斯 Gunter Grass，
2009年德国赫塔·米勒 Herta Muller，
2019年奥地利彼得•汉德克 Peter Handke，
当然，这不完全，但很有趣，好几个九字年头的诺贝尔文学奖都由德语文学担当。
张霁研究比较文学，专门写过有关赫塔•米勒的文章。
纪尧姆说自己非常喜欢这位从罗马尼亚到柏林的作家，还专门参与组织过一场米勒和略萨的对话，2009和2010年的诺贝尔文学奖得主，凸显了西班牙语境和德语语境的不同特点。
那天，我也在现场，虽然听不懂，但，可以感受。
引导红佩佳进入中国文学的是她父亲，在她的学生时代，收到父亲介绍的一本鲁迅的书。而她，后来翻译了余华。在北京停留期间，红佩佳去看了鲁迅故居，探访了北京车公庄附近的外国传教士墓地，那里埋着两位捷克人，利玛窦也在。
爱与死，这是"很少提及"以至于太多见的诗歌主题。
南翔带来了《女人的葵花》片段，这本小说，是一个关于爱的故事。
保罗•策兰的名言，法语诗寻找爱，德语诗寻找真。纪尧姆的法语诗，虽然我们不能阅读，但可以欣赏音韵。当然，彼得•汉德克在2016年访问中国的时候，回应鲍勃•迪伦获得诺贝尔文学奖，说过"文学是用来阅读的"；他也在2014年说过诺贝尔文学奖"到底是应该废除的"，因为"它对文学，只是事后虚伪的追封。"
关于这位诺贝尔文学奖获得者，2004年的奥地利获奖作家耶利内克就曾经说过自己受之有愧，而彼得•汉德克才当之无愧。
二O一九，这话说过之后十五年。
南翔的手上，拿着一本《试论疲倦》，按照传统的观点，这不是小说，也不是散文，是小说也是散文。如同跨媒介现代艺术。
1982年的马尔克斯和2012年的莫言，展现了魔幻现实主义，莫言、余华、阎连科、苏童、宁肯......，余华说过文学要处理内心与现实之间的关系。
文学要担当读者与作者的关系么？
卡夫卡在维也纳附近的疗养院去世，里尔克在维也纳均是档案局为奥匈帝国服兵役，当时和茨维格勉强算得上同事......
耳熟能详，意犹未尽。
以城市为单位，以文学阅读为纽带，国际城际阅读联盟在深圳中心书城亮相。
中国文学和德语文学，"深圳•维也纳"作为起点，"阅读双城记"将穿梭于不同文化背景之间展开......
作为这场文学论坛的主持人，真心希望城际文学对话不仅能越来越丰富，而且，越来越走进读者心中。
