BEIJING — Literature is not a boxing match, though sometimes it can appear that way given the polarizing passions it can generate. Such was the case in recent days, as two very different Chinese writers, one feted by the ruling Communist Party and the other spurned by it, received prestigious international awards.
北京——文学不是拳击比赛，但考虑到文学所能激发的各种强烈感情，它有时候也会像是场比赛。最近几天，就出现了这种情况。两位截然不同的中国作家几乎同时获得了国际大奖，在他们当中，一位受到执政党共产党的高度赞扬，另一位却遭遇冷落。
In one corner, it seemed, was Mo Yan, who last Thursday was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, an honor the Communist Party’s propaganda chief, Li Changchun, said “reflects the prosperity and progress of Chinese literature, as well as the increasing influence of China.”
在拳台的一角是莫言，他在上周四被授予诺贝尔文学奖(Nobel Prize for Literature)，中国共产党分管宣传系统的领导李长春表示，这个荣誉“既是中国文学繁荣进步的体现，也是我国综合国力和国际影响力不断提升的体现。”
In the other was Liao Yiwu, the winner of this year’s Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which he accepted Sunday in Frankfurt with a scorching speech whose theme was: “This empire must break apart.”
在另一角则是获得2012年德国书展和平奖(Peace Prize of the German Book Trade)的廖亦武，他上周日在法兰克福接受了这一荣誉，并发表激烈尖刻的讲话，演讲主题是“这个帝国必须分裂”。
The empire Mr. Liao referred to was the People’s Republic of China, and he said its demise as an authoritarian state must come for the sake of freedom in China and the world. Mr. Liao, who spent four years in prison for his writings, fled China last year after decades of political persecution and is now based in Germany.
廖亦武所说的帝国指的是中华人民共和国。他表示，为了中国和世界的自由，这个独裁统治下的国家必须消亡。廖亦武曾因言获罪，并坐牢四年，他在遭受了几十年的政治迫害后于去年逃离中国，目前居于德国。
That these two men have been widely portrayed as representing antagonistic camps — one establishment, one dissident — that together define the boundaries of contemporary Chinese literature may reveal the extent to which the Communist-ruled mainland has dominated the discussion, another writer said.
另一位作家表示，这两个人被广泛塑造成两大敌对阵营的代表——一边是统治集团，一边是异见人士，两大阵营共同定义了中国当代文学的界限。这种情况可能显示出，中国共产党治下的大陆地区已经在多大程度上成为了这场辩论中的中心议题。
The sheer scale of China’s politics, like its population and economy, can eclipse other, smaller voices from independent Chinese traditions like democratic Taiwan’s or Hong Kong’s, said the poet and scholar Leung Ping-kwan.
诗人兼学者梁秉钧(Leung Ping-kwan)表示，中国政治的规模，一如该国的人口和经济，能让那些拥有独立中国传统的地方发出的声音变得微弱，比如民主台湾和香港。
Not considering these alternative visions of China diminishes what is in fact a richly diverse culture — much as the politics of the one-party state reduces the different voices of the society it rules.
不考虑这些其他的中国传统削弱了这个实际上非常多样化的文化，就像一党制国家的政治会减少社会上的不同声音一样。
“The mainland is a kind of autonomous, self-sufficient cosmos that no other literature in China can compete against, ” said Mr. Leung, a Hong Kong native. “But there are other traditions of modernity that are not being considered.”
“大陆地区是一个自主、自给自足的世界，其他中国地区的文学都不能与之匹敌，”香港本地的梁秉钧说，“但还有其他的现代传统没被考虑在内。”
Especially in the West, he said by telephone, “people’s concept of Chinese literature is really limited. When they talk about Chinese literature, it’s either Mo Yan, who represents the acceptable mainstream writer from the China mainland, or it’s Liao Yiwu, who represents the dissidents.”
他在接受电话采访时表示，尤其在西方，“人们对中国文学的认识实际上非常有限。他们说起中国文学时，提到的要么是中国大陆地区被认可的主流作家的代表莫言，要么是异见人士代表廖亦武。”
“If you are from, say, Germany, you could think that Chinese people are all farmers living in Gaomi, ” Mr. Mo’s rural hometown and the inspiration for his writing, “or are dissidents, ” he said.
梁秉钧说，“假设你是一个德国人，那你可能就以为中国人都是高密农民，”高密是莫言偏远的故乡，是莫言写作的灵感之源。“或者认为中国人都是异见者。”
“I’m not against Mr. Mo, ” he added. “But there’s something missing from this situation. There needs to be a spectrum. It’s an incomplete map, ” said Mr. Leung, whose landmark book of poetry about Hong Kong, “City at the End of Time, ” has just been reissued.
他补充道，“我不是反对莫言。但现在这个情况，缺了点儿什么。我们需要一个文学全景，而眼前的地图是不完整的。”梁秉钧的诗集《形象香港》(City at the End of Time)，是一部描写香港的里程碑著作，刚刚获得再版。
To help complete that map, we might look to a third Chinese writer who received a prize this month — the Taiwan poet and scholar Yang Mu, who on Oct. 5 was awarded the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. (October is proving to be a big month for Chinese writers.)
为了把这张地图补充完整，我们可以将目光投向另一位于本月获奖的中文作家——台湾诗人及学者杨牧。10月5日，杨牧获得纽曼华语文学奖(Newman Prize for Chinese Literature)。（事实正在表明，对华语作家来说，10月是个好月份。）
“If I had to say who was the greatest poet writing in Chinese today, I’d say Yang Mu, ” said Michelle Yeh, a professor at the University of California, Davis, and one of the judges on the prize committee.
纽曼华语文学奖的评委之一、加州大学戴维斯分校(University of California, Davis)教授奚密(Michelle Yeh)说，“如果非要说谁是当今最伟大的华语诗人，我会说，是杨牧。”
“It’s about who has made the greatest contribution to the Chinese language, and the body of work Yang Mu has made so far has made an amazing contribution, ” she said.
她说，“对华语做出最大贡献的人，才是最伟大的华语诗人。迄今为止，杨牧的作品已经对华语做出了杰出贡献。”
“Now a lot of people don’t know that because they don’t read him, ” she said. Writers on the China mainland often find his work “too refined and literary.”
她说，“现在许多人不知道这些，是因为他们不读杨牧的作品。”大陆作家常常觉得杨牧的作品“太高雅，太文学化”。
Mr. Yang is best known for his early, romantic poetry and his interest in challenging fixed historical narratives.
杨牧最广为人知的是他的早期浪漫诗歌，以及他对挑战固有传统叙事模式的兴趣。
“Basically, he is saying, ‘I am outside the mainstream of Chinese literature today, ”’ Ms. Yeh said.
奚密说，“基本上，他是在表示，‘我处于当今华语主流文学之外。’”
“His role model is the scholar-writer of the past, like Su Tong-po, ” an 11th-century poet, she said. “He is a writer thoroughly versed in the classical tradition, in the culture. Does Mo Yan have that? I don’t think so, frankly.”
她说，“他以过去的学者作家为榜样，例如苏东坡”，这位11世纪的诗人。“他是一个对中国古典传统及文化谙熟于心的作家。莫言有这些品质吗？说实话，我觉得他没有。”
But Ms. Yeh admires Mr. Mo, too.
但是奚密也欣赏莫言。
“Contemporary fiction writers from mainland China, their greatest asset is their experience with their land — their experience after 1949, what they went through, what their grandparents went through. That is their reality, ” she said.
她说，“当代大陆小说作者最大的资本是他们在自己土地上的经历——他们在1949年之后的经历，他们经历了什么，他们的祖父那辈人经历了什么。那是他们的现实。”
Much of that reality, she added, is rooted in political turmoil.
她补充道， 那种现实，许多都植根于政治动荡之中。
Still, “I think their grasp of China is pretty limited to the 20th century, especially the second half of the 20th century, ” she said.
然而她还是说道，“我觉得他们对中国的理解很有限，仅局限于20世纪，尤其是20世纪下半叶。”
So what do these three prizes for three writers tell us?
那么，这三位作家获得的三个奖项都告诉了我们什么？
It may be obvious to some, but to a reading public exposed mostly to translated literature from the Chinese mainland, unfamiliar with other contemporary Chinese writing, it may be worth pointing out: “Chinese writers have radically divergent realities, about China, about the Chinese language, ” Ms. Yeh said.
奚密说，对一些人来说，答案可能很明显。但一些外国读者基本上只看来自中国大陆的作品译本，他们不熟悉其他的中国当代作品，因而我们需要为他们指出来：“中国作家们笔下的中国现实，及其中国语言的表达方式，截然不同。”
“Mo Yan is a roots-seeking writer. He is true to that, ” she said. “Liao Yiwu is very passionate about what he does. He can only be himself, and I admire him for what he has been through. Yang Mu is for me the best artist, the one with ties to the culture and the past.”
她说，“莫言是位寻根作家，他忠于他的寻根写作。廖亦武对自己做的事情充满激情。他只能做他自己。他的经历令我崇拜他。但我觉得杨牧是最好的艺术家，他传承了中国文化，并与其历史紧密相连。”
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