2022.08.16 萨尔曼-拉什迪的作品介绍

shiyi18

The Economist reads
An introduction to the works of Salman Rushdie
Our culture correspondent recommends four of the novelist’s books—and one about how the fatwa against him changed the world
Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie dedicates his book in Hungarian language ay the Libri bookshop of Mammut Plaza in Budapest, 29 November 2007. Rushdie is in Hungary to promote the Hungarian edition of his recent book 'Shalimar the Clown'. AFP PHOTO / BALINT PORNECZI (Photo credit should read BALINT PORNECZI/AFP via Getty Images)
Aug 16th 2022

Save

Share

Give
Ayatollah ruhollah khomeini had probably never heard of Salman Rushdie when the bespectacled, slightly balding, Indian-born British author’s fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses”, came out in 1988. Yet within five months, Iran’s supreme leader had made the writer the world’s most famous literary apostate, describing the book as “blasphemous against Islam” and issuing a fatwa on national radio calling for the execution of the author and all those involved in the book’s publication. On February 14th 1989, two hours after the edict was announced, Sir Salman emerged from a memorial service in London for Bruce Chatwin, his friend and fellow author, stepped into a car and sped off into a different life. Today, as the 75-year-old writer lies in hospital, after being attacked on stage in upstate New York by a knife-wielding assailant who was not even born when the fatwa was issued, it is worth recalling why Sir Salman—who was knighted in 2007—is one of the great novelists of our time: funny, brave and endlessly inventive.


Midnight’s Children. By Salman Rushdie. Random House; 560 pages; $18. Vintage; £7.99

“Midnight’s Children” recounts the many-layered story of India’s transition from British Raj rule to bloody partition. It is told through the eyes of Saleem Sinai, who was born at midnight on August 14th-15th 1947, the exact moment of Indian independence. Saleem eventually realises that every child born in the first hour of the newly free nation’s life is imbued with special powers, and that those born closest to midnight are the most powerful of all. Using telepathy, he brings hundreds of children together to debate the myriad challenges facing the fledgling nation and to try and understand how best to harness the children’s special gifts. “Midnight’s Children” announced a major new voice in postcolonial literature. It won the Booker Prize in 1981, as well as being named the Booker’s best winner of all time in both 1993 and 2008, to celebrate the prize’s 25th and 40th anniversaries. It was also adapted (unsuccessfully, we thought) into a film.

The Satanic Verses. By Salman Rushdie. Random House; 576 pages, $19. Consortium Inc; £9.99

Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, the two protagonists of “The Satanic Verses”, are Indian expatriate actors, one a Bollywood superstar and the other a voiceover artist working in England. On a flight from India to Britain, their plane is hijacked over the English Channel. Farishta is magically transformed into the archangel Gabriel and Chamcha into a devil, who on his return to Earth, is arrested as a suspected illegal immigrant. Whereas Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers regarded one of the book’s three dream sequences as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad (of the other two, one is about Ayesha, an Indian peasant girl who receives Archangel Gibreel’s revelations, and the third is about a fanatical contemporary religious leader known as the “Imam”), many readers took the book to be a satire on 1980s Britain. Sir Salman, by contrast, saw it principally as a novel about transformation and how a shift of place affects people and their cultures. The book is not about Islam, he said, “but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay”.


Haroun and the Sea of Stories. By Salman Rushdie. Penguin; 224 pages; $27 and £8.99

After “The Satanic Verses”, Sir Salman concentrated on a book of children’s stories addressed to Zafar, his young son, from whom he had been separated by the fatwa. Jokes, allegories and puns from several languages fill “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”. A 20th-century “One Thousand and One Nights”, the book opens in a city so swathed in misery it cannot remember what it is called, and features several characters whose names allude to speech or silence. “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” was released as an audiobook read by Sir Salman himself, and adapted for the stage as both a play and opera. We published an article about the book’s enduring charm in 2020, 30 years after its publication.

Joseph Anton: A Memoir. By Salman Rushdie. Random House; 656 pages; $18. Vintage; £12.99.

In 2012 Sir Salman published “Joseph Anton”, a memoir about how he and his family had lived for almost a decade under the threat of murder. The title comes from the pseudonym he chose to help maintain his security, inspired by two of the writers he loved most: Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. A study of confusion, fear and wrath, “Joseph Anton” casts a tender look on those who stood by him while exposing the politicians and rainy-day friends who chose to put their own interests before those of a man in mortal jeopardy.

From Fatwa to Jihad: How the World Changed: The Satanic Verses to Charlie Hebdo. By Kenan Malik. Atlantic Books, 272 pages; £12.99

For those who were not yet born in 1989, or for older readers who are still unclear about how the Ayatollah’s fatwa changed the world, few books are as clear and as far-sighted as “From Fatwa to Jihad”, by Kenan Malik, a British-raised psychologist, author and journalist, which was first published in 2010. “Muslim fury seemed driven not by questions of harassment, discrimination or poverty,” Mr Malik wrote in 2018, the 30th anniversary of the publication of “The Satanic Verses”. In the late 1980s no one talked much about identity politics. Nowadays, “such grievance is entrenched in the cultural landscape”. It is a fair bet that were it written today “The Satanic Verses” would not be published—simply for fear of giving offence.■
______________

More from The Economist reads:
Our Asia editor picks six books as an introduction to India
Our language columnist, Johnson, picks five of his favourite recent reads
We recommend seven books on why Americans both love and loathe immigrants
Our obituaries editor picks the five best biographies ever written



经济学人》读后感
萨尔曼-拉什迪的作品介绍
我们的文化记者推荐了这位小说家的四本书，其中一本是关于针对他的法特瓦如何改变世界的。
2007年11月29日，印度出生的英国作家萨尔曼-拉什迪在布达佩斯Mammut Plaza的Libri书店用匈牙利语献上他的书。拉什迪在匈牙利宣传他的新书《小丑夏利玛尔》的匈牙利版本。AFP PHOTO / BALINT PORNECZI (Photo credit should read BALINT PORNECZI/AFP via Getty Images)
2022年8月16日



1988年，阿亚图拉-鲁霍拉-霍梅尼(Ayatollah ruhollah khomeini)的第四部小说《撒旦诗篇》问世时，这位面容清秀、略显秃顶的印度裔英国作家可能从未听说过萨尔曼-拉什迪。然而，在五个月内，伊朗最高领导人使这位作家成为世界上最著名的文学叛徒，称这本书是 "对伊斯兰教的亵渎"，并在国家电台发布法特瓦，要求处决作者和所有参与该书出版的人。1989年2月14日，法令宣布后两小时，萨尔曼爵士从伦敦为他的朋友和作家伙伴布鲁斯-查特温举行的追悼会上走出来，走进一辆汽车，飞快地进入了另一种生活。今天，当这位75岁的作家在纽约州北部的舞台上被一名持刀的袭击者袭击后躺在医院里，值得回顾的是，为什么萨尔曼爵士--他在2007年被授予骑士称号--是我们这个时代最伟大的小说家之一：幽默、勇敢和无尽的创造力。


午夜的孩子》。作者：萨尔曼-拉什迪。兰登书屋；560页；18美元。 Vintage；7.99英镑

"午夜的孩子》讲述了印度从英国统治时期到血腥分治时期的多层次的故事。它是通过萨利姆-西奈的眼睛讲述的，他出生于1947年8月14日至15日的午夜，正是印度独立的时刻。萨利姆最终意识到，在这个新的自由国家诞生的第一个小时里出生的每个孩子都被赋予了特殊的力量，而那些在最接近午夜时分出生的孩子是最强大的。他利用心灵感应，将数百名儿童召集在一起，讨论这个新生国家面临的无数挑战，并试图了解如何最好地利用儿童的特殊天赋。"午夜的孩子》宣布了后殖民主义文学的一个重要的新声音。它在1981年赢得了布克奖，并在1993年和2008年被评为布克奖有史以来的最佳获奖者，以庆祝该奖项的25周年和40周年。它还被改编成了一部电影（我们认为不成功）。

撒旦诗篇》（The Satanic Verses）。作者：萨尔曼-拉什迪。兰登书屋；576页，19美元。财团公司；9.99英镑

撒旦诗篇》的两位主人公Gibreel Farishta和Saladin Chamcha是印度的外籍演员，一个是宝莱坞的超级明星，另一个是在英国工作的配音艺术家。在从印度飞往英国的途中，他们的飞机在英吉利海峡上空被劫持。法里斯塔被神奇地变成了天使长加布里埃尔，而查查则变成了一个魔鬼，他在回到地球后，被当作非法移民嫌疑人而被捕。阿亚图拉-霍梅尼和他的追随者认为书中的三个梦境之一是对先知穆罕默德的侮辱（另外两个梦境中，一个是关于印度农妇阿耶莎，她接受了大天使加布里埃尔的启示，第三个梦境是关于一个被称为 "伊玛目 "的狂热的当代宗教领袖），许多读者认为这本书是对1980年代英国的讽刺。相比之下，萨勒曼爵士认为它主要是一部关于转型的小说，以及地方的转变如何影响人们和他们的文化。他说，这本书不是关于伊斯兰教的，"而是关于移民、蜕变、分裂的自我、爱情、死亡、伦敦和孟买"。


哈伦和故事之海》。作者：萨尔曼-拉什迪。企鹅公司；224页；27美元和8.99英镑

在《撒旦诗篇》之后，萨尔曼爵士集中精力写了一本写给扎法尔（Zafar）的儿童故事书，他的小儿子因为法特瓦而与他分离。来自几种语言的笑话、寓言和双关语充满了《哈伦和故事之海》。作为20世纪的 "一千零一夜"，该书在一个被苦难笼罩的城市中展开，它不记得自己叫什么名字，书中有几个人物的名字暗指说话或沉默。"哈伦和故事之海》由萨尔曼爵士亲自朗读的有声书发行，并被改编为舞台剧和歌剧。我们在出版30年后的2020年发表了一篇关于这本书的持久魅力的文章。

约瑟夫-安东。一本回忆录。作者：萨尔曼-拉什迪。兰登书屋；656页；18美元。 Vintage；12.99英镑。

2012年，萨尔曼爵士出版了《约瑟夫-安东》，一本关于他和他的家人如何在谋杀威胁下生活了近十年的回忆录。书名来自他为帮助维持安全而选择的笔名，灵感来自他最喜爱的两位作家。约瑟夫-康拉德和安东-契诃夫。约瑟夫-安东 "是对混乱、恐惧和愤怒的研究，对那些支持他的人投以温柔的目光，同时揭露了那些选择将自己的利益置于一个处于致命危险中的人的利益之上的政客和雨天的朋友。

从法特瓦到圣战。世界是如何改变的：从《撒旦诗篇》到《查理周刊》。作者：凯南-马利克。大西洋出版社，272页；12.99英镑

对于那些1989年尚未出生的人，或者对阿亚图拉的法特瓦如何改变世界仍不清楚的年长读者来说，很少有书能像《从法特瓦到圣战》这样清晰和有远见，作者是英国长大的心理学家、作家和记者肯南-马利克，该书于2010年首次出版。"马利克先生在2018年《撒旦诗篇》出版30周年之际写道："穆斯林的愤怒似乎不是由骚扰、歧视或贫困问题驱动的。在20世纪80年代末，没有人谈及身份政治。如今，"这种不满情绪在文化领域根深蒂固"。可以肯定的是，如果今天写《撒旦诗篇》，它不会被出版--仅仅是因为害怕冒犯。
______________

更多来自《经济学人》的阅读。
我们的亚洲编辑挑选了六本介绍印度的书
我们的语言专栏作家约翰逊挑选了五本他最近最喜欢的读物
我们推荐七本关于美国人为什么既喜欢又厌恶移民的书
我们的讣告编辑挑选了有史以来最好的五本传记。