Next, a plea to our friends who are writing in China not to write with foreigners in mind. Now that contemporary Chinese writing

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问题 Next, a plea to our friends who are writing in China not to write with foreigners in mind. Now that contemporary Chinese writing is beginning to find more readers abroad, there is a danger that writers will aim at foreign readers instead of domestic ones. The writing we Anglophones will respond to most warmly will generally be precisely the writing that is most clearly intended for Chinese readers.
Who, after all, is the Chinese writer who has made a bigger impact than any other in English-speaking countries these last twenty years? None of those I have mentioned so far, but a politician who died in the 1970s. And his works, apart from a few interviews with foreigners, were nearly all addressed to Chinese problems and Chinese readers. His style was clear, strong, and effective, and very Chinese too, being hardly influenced by foreign models. Yet he survived translation to be the idol of 1960s radicals around the world, and put words and expressions into the English language.
So please don’t write for us, but write for your primary reader, leaving us to choose(by criteria that may well seem quite absurd to you)what may be accessible to us ignorant Anglophones. And don’t worry in the least about what we think. Few Anglophone authors lose sleep over their standing in China, and that seems a good example to follow.
Take whatever you like from abroad, but only what you need for your own purposes. Blind imitation of foreign models is unlikely to bring foreign recognition. Only what works in your own culture has any chance of surviving the transition to another.
From Insuperable Barriers? By W. J. E. Jenner

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答案 接下来,我恳请中国的作家朋友创作时,不要总把外国人放在心上。由于越来越多的外国人开始阅读中国当代作品,因此一些作家创作时,可能会将外国而非中国读者,视为主要的读者群。一般来说,最能触动以英语为母语的读者的恰好是那些专为中国读者而创作的作品。 过去20年间,在说英语国家中影响力最大的中国作家是谁呢?他并非我之前提到的任何一位,而是在20世纪70年代去世的一位政客。除了接受的几次外国采访之外,他的作品几乎清一色都是针对中国问题,面向中国读者。他的风格简洁、强烈、高效,具有非常鲜明的中国特色,基本没有受到任何外国作品的影响。然而,他的作品经过翻译之后,依然受到20世纪60年代全球的激进派追捧,书中一些单词和短语经过翻译收录到了英语当中。 所以,恳求大家,不要为我们,而应为你们自己的主要读者创作,让我们这些一无所知、以英语为母语的人,自己选择(选择标准或许让你们觉得莫名其妙)能够触动我们的作品。不要顾虑我们的想法。没有几个以英语为母语的作家会因为他们在中国的声望而失眠,这种做法值得遵循。 对于外国文学,可以任意借鉴,但借鉴的内容一定要为自己的目的服务。盲目模仿外国作品不太可能得到认可。唯有你自己所在的文化认可的作品,才可能在转化为其他语言后,受到相应文化的认可。 《无法逾越的鸿沟?》W.J.E.詹纳尔

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