雌性的草地

by Geling Yan, 严歌苓

《雌性的草地》介绍了在文革动乱的年代，一群年轻的姑娘被放置在中国西北荒凉的大草原上，她们在这个神圣而又庄严——“女子牧马班”——的集体中，在恶劣的草原气候和环境下牧养军马。故事从小点儿这个有乱伦、偷窃、凶杀行为的少女混入女子牧马班开始，以小点儿的观察角度来表现这个女修士般的集体。这个集体被荒诞的人性和庄严的神性所扼杀，年轻的肉体与灵魂作为牺牲，奉上了所谓“理想”的祭坛；而这“理想”，最终被认清为罪恶。

376 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Geling Yan (嚴歌苓) is one of the most acclaimed novelists and screenwriters writing in the Chinese language today and a well-established writer in English. Born in Shanghai, she served with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the Cultural Revolution, starting at age twelve as a dancer in an entertainment troupe.

After serving for over a decade with the PLA (including tours in Tibet and as a war correspondent during the Sino-Vietnam border conflict), Ms. Yan was discharged with a rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel. She published her first novel in 1986 and ever since has produced a steady stream of novels, short stories, novellas, essays and scripts. Her best-known novels in English are The Secret Talker, published by HarperCollins; Little Aunt Crane published in the UK by Random House affiliate Harvill Secker; The Flowers of War, published in the U.S. by The Other Press and elsewhere by Random House's Harvill Secker; The Banquet Bug (The Uninvited in its UK edition - written directly in English); and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, (translated by Cathy Silber) both published by Hyperion in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK. She has also published a novella and short story collection called White Snake and Other Stories, translated by Lawrence A. Walker and published by Aunt Lute Books.

Many of Geling Yan's works have been adapted for film and television, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (directed by Joan Chen) and Siao Yu (directed by Sylvia Chang; produced by Ang Lee). Chinese director Zhang Yimou made The Flowers of War, a big-budget film based on her work set during the 1937 Rape of Nanking, starring Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale; Coming Home 归来, based on her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi 陆犯焉识, and One Second 一秒钟, also based on that novel.

Ms. Yan has also written numerous scripts based on her own and other authors' work, both in English and Chinese, including a script for a biopic on the iconic Peking opera star Mei Lanfang for director Chen Kaige (released as Forever Enthralled 梅兰芳) starring Leon Lai and Zhang Ziyi. She wrote the script for Dangerous Liaisons 危險關係, a Chinese-language film directed by South Korean director Hur Jin-ho and starring Zhang Ziyi, Jang Dong Gun and Cecilia Cheung. Her novel Fang Hua 芳华 is the basis a film of the same name (English title Youth) directed by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚. Her novel A City Called Macau 妈阁是座城 was made into a film directed by Li Shaohong 李少红, released in 2018.

Geling Yan a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and of France's Société des Gens de Lettres. She is affiliated with the Hollywood screenwriters' union, Writers' Guild of America, west, and is a former member of the Chinese Writers' Association (中国作家协会).

Geling Yan went to the United States at the end of 1989 for graduate study. She holds a Master's in Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from Columbia College, Chicago. To date she has published over 40 books in various editions in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, the UK and elsewhere; has won over 30 literary and film awards; and has had her work adapted or written scripts for numerous film, TV and radio works. Her works have been translated into twenty-one languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Uyghur, and Vietnamese, and her English-language novel The Banquet Bug/The Uninvited was translated into Chinese. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

She has been subject to an unofficial but effective ban in China since March 2020, when she wrote and promulgated an essay on the Chinese government's initial handling of COVID-19. Her future Chinese-language work will be published by her own publishing company, New Song Media GmbH.

For non-Chinese language publishing she is represented by Agence Astier-Pécher.

Reviews

[鱼千里]

小点儿这个人物最初看有点讨厌，她和沈红霞的人物塑造是一个对比，沈是从最初的令人敬佩，到令人同情，再到令人憎厌，小点儿恰恰相反，当她走投无路之时，叔叔、柯丹选择放过她，而沈红霞正是她亲手毁掉了自己的宝贝红马，让女知青们变成理想的工具如她一样，也是她堵死了小点儿的生路让她选择投火自尽。你可以选择不做人，但你不应该也强迫别人跟你一样当工具人，还告诉别人当工具人是多么地高尚、纯洁和伟大。我认为严歌苓对被禁锢的女性，那个时代伟大女性的形象塑造得非常深刻且细腻，每个女性身上都能找到我自己的影子，毛娅的单纯而愚蠢，柯丹的倔强，小点儿的幻想，老杜的自卑，沈红霞的自我洗脑，真的是一位杰出的作家，从写作技巧、人物塑造、文学语言、结构布局都是那么精妙而准确，除了个别细节，比如有时小点儿的话明显是作者的口授（不符合人物设定），小点儿可以这么想，但绝对不会这么说。写到最后能看看到作者的得意忘形，和过于松弛导致最后10%有点松劲儿了，金眼和憨巴的支线故事真的毫无必要，我知道作者是想通过动物故事来表达某种哲学思想，但是很俗套也没必要。

[阿列克霞 · Rating 5 out of 5]

补标。聊斋鬼狐与毛式美学在现代手法下的奇异融合，美得如怪物。实在想不到严歌苓也有这样瑰丽的作品。理解沈红霞，做不成沈红霞。在她这里我只看到一件事：英雄主义本身就是反英雄的。灵魂也不免因绝望而震颤。结尾幽魂登场时正好播放到肖斯塔科维奇的《牛虻》序曲，横扫千军，荡魂摄魄。大概是上初中的时候，我还有个当导演的梦想，现在自然抛到脑后了，可如果有机会成真的话，真希望能把这个拍成电影。