穗子

by Geling Yan, 严歌苓

作为严歌苓中短篇小说自选定本中最独特的一部，《穗子》讲述了一个女孩成长的故事，是严歌苓自传式小说集。篇目包括：《柳腊姐》、《老人鱼》、《角儿朱依锦》、《黑影》、《小顾艳传》、《梨花疫》、《拖鞋大队》、《灰舞鞋》、《奇才》、《耗子》、《我不是精灵》十一部中短篇小说。主人公穗子成长中的各种人与事，儿时的亲人，少时的同伴，少女时的恋慕对象。《柳腊姐》：柳腊大概是中国最后一批童养媳，在作者笔下，其风貌、渴望、理想却与今天的女学生并无两样。《老人鱼》：穗子有个没血缘关系的“外公”本来是抗战英雄，却因为一堆勋章，遭来横祸。《拖鞋大队》：不折不扣的残酷青春代言篇，孩童少年狠心、不负责任地伤人，实在是世界一流，“她们”那些以恶报善的行为，几乎天下雷同。《灰舞鞋》：书中最长一篇，一个“很电影”的爱情故事，“文革”中一个文艺女兵小穗子懵懂的恋爱故事。在那席卷全国的动乱年代，15岁的小穗子爱上了22岁的排长邵东俊，但却不能公开表达，她就偷偷地给心上人写情书。然而邵冬骏却在分队长高爱渝的诱惑下背叛了他们之间的恋情。小穗子写给邵冬骏的160多封情书，也落入了高爱渝之手，并且被公之于众，结果引发了一场轩然大波。命运让穗子在痛苦&

368 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2014

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

[Tong · Rating 4 out of 5]

一个女孩的成长史。外公的部分有点难过，但好像也不能责怪小小的穗子。人的一辈子中就是会有很多让人难过又无能为力的事情吧。
穗子在文工团恋爱的部分，又气又心疼。但是穗子也不后悔吧，年轻时候的爱就是会不顾一切，才没白年轻一回嘛。

[我说的每句话都是谎话 · Rating 2 out of 5]

文笔很细腻，笔下人物都充满一种欲望。本能的欲望和时代的精神矛盾。
那只小猫写得倒是挺好。