论文部分内容阅读
《知晓我姓名》编辑手记
编者按:2020年 12月,香奈儿·米勒 (张小夏)入选福布斯2020年30位30岁以下精英榜。事件发生四年之后,张小夏作为受害者决定站出来,以真名推出纪实文学《知晓我姓名》(Know My Name)被16个语种翻译出版,这本书的中文版日前由世纪文景推出。人民日报客户端也刊发文章:《知晓我姓名》从受害者走向胜利者。中文版获2020豆瓣年度读书榜单并荣登社科纪实榜高分图书。本刊特邀了中文版译者、浙江外国语学院青年教师陈毓飞,编者上海人民出版社编辑杨沁一起解读《知晓我姓名Know My Name》。
一
2016年,我在印度工作。那时,印度接连发生了几起恶性强奸案例,残忍的作案手法令人心碎,BBC为此拍摄了纪录片《印度的女儿》。出发之前,每个知道我要去印度的人都会迅速地向我瞥一眼,眼里流露出意味深长的关切:“哦,那你要小心啊。”我慢慢从那种眼神里意识到,发生在我周围的耻辱也会成为自己的耻辱。
为了熟悉当地情况,我每天都会读当地的报纸,看看发生了什么新闻、媒体在关注什么。有一天我在《印度时报》(TOI)的国际版里猛然看到了“斯坦福性侵案”。
案子发生在2015年,犯罪嫌疑人被当场拘捕,有目击证人,医院提供了完整的受害报告,陪审团认定针对嫌疑人的三项性侵重罪指控均成立,最高可判14年监禁——但最终只判了6个月,实际减刑为3个月。因为他是名校学生,游泳健将,未来的奥运新星。
不幸中的万幸是,化名为埃米莉·多伊的受害者极具写作天赋,她在法庭上发表了长篇陈述,将自己遭受的痛苦、羞辱、迷惑、失望、愤怒以异常清晰的逻辑表达出来,她的呼喊既是个人情感的澎湃,也充满对他者的共情——一夜之间,这篇陈述在网络上燃烧起来,灼痛了美国人的神经,一位女议员带头在美国众议院全文朗读陈述,这也是性侵受害者的陈述历史上首次在美国国会众议院上被全文宣读;时任美国副总统拜登发表致受害者的公开信,强烈谴责美国文化中对性侵受害者的严重不公。
报道的字里行间,我都能感受到那个印度记者的兴奋。对一个女性地位全球倒数的国家来说,这样的声音太珍贵、太令人心潮澎湃了,它虽然看上去离现实如此遥远,却又如此迫近地存在于每个人心中的热望。
后来,有了林奕含事件。那个太美好的女孩,某些时刻房思琪甚至还会为侵犯她的老师渐渐衰老而感到忧心和愧疚。但房思琪精神崩溃了,林奕含最终离开了这个对她来说过于丑陋的世界。在一个微博树洞中,有上千名网友倾诉自己成长过程中被性侵的经历,她(他)们怀揣着沉甸甸的秘密,仍若无其事地生活着:微笑,购物,上班打卡。
这就是受害者的最终结局吗?为什么施暴者最后活得好好的,反倒是受害者来承担隐忍、羞耻、难以磨灭的痛苦,让她们在深夜里被回忆啃噬甚至被毁灭?
这是不对的,这是不正常的。受害者应该有另一种生存姿态。
2019年,当我以图书编辑的身份读到《知晓我姓名》样章时,我感受到了三年前那个印度记者的兴奋。埃米莉·多伊的故事有了结局。当她被逼入绝境,她站了起来,去战斗,去改变。事实上她做到了,犯罪者终生被注册为性侵罪犯,美国泳协对其终生禁赛。加州罢免了主审法官,并通过两项严惩性侵罪犯的新法案。但这还不够,她还要修复自己受伤的心,找回自己的名字和尊严。她写下这本回忆录,告诉世人:“我不是‘布罗克·特纳的受害者’。我不是他的任何东西。我不属于他。我的名字是香奈儿。我还是半个华裔。我的中文名是张小夏。”
她真的太棒了。
二
译者毓飞交稿是在三月的最后一天。因为疫情比较严重,她几个月来几乎足不出户,没了空间的转换,完全沉浸在文稿的世界中。她把译稿发给我的时候说:“相信你读译稿的时候,会知道我这几个月以来的感觉。”
香奈儿写自己最初意识到被性侵时的感觉,锋利而清晰:一种被寂静吞噬的恐怖。从一个是非分明的世界中脱离。这一刻并非痛苦,并非歇斯底里,亦非痛哭流涕。而是你的内脏变成了冰冷的石头。是纯粹的困惑伴随着一丝察觉。慢慢成长的奢侈已经逝去。由此开始的是残忍的觉醒。
她寫自己试图封锁、遗忘,将痛苦变成具象:“我把那天早上的记忆放进一个大罐子里。我搬着这个罐子,一层一层又一层地往楼下搬,把它放在一个柜子里,锁起来,然后轻快地走上楼去,继续过我以前建造的生活”。但创伤会像幽灵一般逡巡徘徊,令人措手不及地重现,“每当我想起那个早晨,就会多一个罐子。我的脑海被这些密封罐子塞满了。”最后,“我没有地方堆放它们。它们塞满了楼梯间,没法藏在在柜子里。我的世界里堆满了罐子,我没有地方坐,没有地方走,也没有地方呼吸。”
香奈儿笔下有大量栩栩如生的细节,这些细节把她还原为一个活生生的多面体,让人触摸到她生活的质地:爸爸办公室里橙子有鼓胀的脸颊,奶奶偷偷把巧克力带进法庭塞给她,她把营救她的两个瑞典学生的自行车画在床头……她用细腻、绵密、优美的文字书写了曾经温馨的家庭生活,书写了亲人、男友、朋友以及陌生人给予的爱,这些爱有多么温暖,那些痛苦就有多么冰冷而尖利。
但她没有被痛苦击倒。她把更多的力量用来生气和愤怒。网络对她的质疑和污名;法院开庭时间不断改期,将她和家人的生活彻底打乱;辩方律师故意询问细枝末节的问题,诱导她说出自相矛盾的话,甚至声称受害者在被侵犯的过程中获得了快乐……她艰难地挪动步子,紧紧拥抱真相,“保护着它,就像在一场可怕的风暴中保护一团小小的火焰”。稿子看了三分之一,鲍毓明案爆发了,我至今仍记得读到新闻时那种内心被钝刀一点点切割的感觉,然后有马匹在我心里飞奔:恨不得挟泰山以超北海,尽快、马上、现在就把稿子的流程过完,明天就发给印刷厂,后天就让它上市。我不知道这样做到底有什么意义,有多大意义,世界会不会真的因为一本书、一道声音而改变,而多久之后它又会被群体性遗忘,但摆在我面前只有这唯一的事。一天深夜,我看稿看得脑子有点昏沉,于是走到阳台上站了会儿。 窗外的車水马龙跟疫情前已经没什么区别了,即使在夜里,也有络绎不绝的车辆在路上奔波。
唯一不同的是街上很沉默,没有来往行人说话的声音,车辆默默打着灯,它们也知道疫情期间在公共场合张开嘴巴是一件危险的事。我忽然觉得这些车辆、车辆中看不见的驾驶员、书中的女孩、记忆中的女孩和自己都在夜晚的海底世界中潜水,生存像幽暗的大水一样覆盖着所有人。
三
香奈儿在书中也写过潜水。性侵之后,男友为了让她平复身心,和她一起去潜水,那是我觉得全书最精彩的段落之一。
鱼儿像五彩纸屑一样,在我周围自由地游来游去。有大块的石头,发光的意大利面条般的海葵。细长的白尖鲨身体紧贴着沙滩。芦苇一样的海带摇摆着,又长又懒。我给一条长着绿色大嘴唇的土豆形的鱼让路,它跌跌撞撞地匆匆而过,就像面试迟到了一样。一条正在摇头的鳗鱼,就像它正在吵架一样,完全不敢相信你刚才说的话。……我看着所有这些生物过着它们的日常生活,完全没有意识到自己的存在。在这个无言的世界里,自己如此渺小,无人注意,这是多么令人欣慰的事啊。我离开了痛苦,那种让我盲目的痛苦,让我梦想着陷入虚无的痛苦,让我想要消失的痛苦。如果这就是世界,你怎么会想离开呢?所有这些美丽和奇异。
我一边读一边感叹,写得真好啊,多么纯真,多么平静,那种始终游弋在残缺世界中的美好感觉。她并未沉溺于控诉,而是不断挖掘自己在精神和心理上的蜕变过程:如何在痛苦和自我否定中挣扎,如何经过漫长而曲折的修复过程,最终将伤痛内化为人生哲学的一部分。
她从自我束缚、自我纠结的循环里破茧而出,站起来,将自己融入广阔的受害者群体之中,向她们大声疾呼:这不是你的错。她不仅看见自己,还看见指控韦恩斯坦的好莱坞女星,看见倒在针对女性的枪击案中的亡魂,看见被家暴、用蹩脚的英文为自己申辩的华人女子,看见被警察开枪打死的黑人男子……这些人群和她有着某种相似的联结:或同为女性、华人,或遭遇不公,他们身后映射着更宽广的制度和文化问题。
对写作者来说,最重要的是同理心,看见那些被社会抹除的人,听见那些被沉默吞噬的声音,唯有如此,写作者才能克服自身的伤痛向更辽阔的世界敞开。
当她真正敞开自己,她知道自己已无需匿名。正如她在崔娃的访谈节目中所说,在决定使用真名的那一刻她已经深知自己是谁、自己的价值、自己的能力,如果一个人能深入了解自己,就不会再陷入纠结和迷乱。她真的太勇敢,当她脸上闪动着光,大声对世界上每一个曾有过伤痛的女孩说:
“毋庸置疑,你是无与伦比的,你是美丽的,有价值的,值得尊重的,不可否认,每一天的每一分钟,你都是强大的,没有人能把这一切从你身上夺走。”
四
书下印后,心中如释重负。做这本书的过程中遇到了很多善意:不少网友在Know My Name的英文版页面上留下了动人的评论,我曾给一些网友发信,询问能否在宣传文案中使用他们的评论,他们欣然授权。
不少我不认识的编辑同行都祝福这本书能遇见更多读者,我和一些记者和撰稿人也因为这本书结缘成为朋友。特别感谢译者毓飞和设计师赵瑾,这本书凝结着她们的才华、灵感以及辛苦付出的日日夜夜。
私心里,这本书也是给自己做个交代,为了那个女孩曾送我一盘葡萄、为在印度报纸上读到的那些血淋淋的案例、为微博树洞里孤独回响的留言……这些事发生了、被我看见了,就和我产生了某种联系,它们也在潜移默化地改变着我。总觉得对她们有所亏欠。现在还给她们这样一本充满力量的小书,心里好受多了,虽然也还是没有还清。
几天后,收到作者的邮件,她说:“让这本书和中国读者见面是我一直以来的梦想,谢谢你们将它带给中国读者,这对我和我的家人来说意义非凡。”
她在书中写到,每次妈妈带她回中国老家,外婆都会对她说:“你的酒窝真漂亮!脚真大!”外婆的祖母裹小脚。4英寸的脚。而现在,她的脚是9英寸半。经过奋力游弋,“每一代人都比上一代更自由一些。”
这种自由就是长时间潜水后浮出水面的感受——经过漫长的幽暗、经过重重叠叠的水的压力,我们重新回到空气当中,重新上岸,重新呼吸。
(作者:杨沁,《知晓我姓名》中文版编辑,
世纪文景/上海人民出版社,2020年6月版)
Let’s Go with Them to See
the Undercurrents of the World
Chanel Miller is the standard rape survivor formerly known publicly as Emily Doe who has come forward and revealed her identity in Know My Name in an effort to help others who have been sexually assaulted. The book has been translated into sixteen languages. The Chinese translation ranks high in a booklist for faction for 2020 at Douban, an authoritative website for rankings of books, television series, documentaries and feature films. In this issue of Cultural Dialogue we print three articles respectively by Yang Xin, the editor of the Chinese version of Know My Name, Chen Yufei, the translator who works as a teacher at Zhejiang Foreign Languages Academy, and Zhang Ci, Chanel Miller’s mother, who is an American Chinese. With Chinese ancestral roots, Chanel Miller’s Chinese name is Zhang Xiaoxia. Shortly after my college graduation I remember the day I went to visit my friend working for a company in Beijing. We were chatting when someone knocked on the door. A girl came in holding a plate of grapes for me. She put the plate down on the table and went out like a doe as if she thought her stay could disturb us. I saw her just for a brief moment. She was a pretty girl with long hair down the back. My friend said the pretty girl had a genial and lovely character and supervisors liked her. About six months later, my friend told me that the pretty girl had resigned shortly after the Spring Festival. At the company’s year-end party just before the Spring Festival, she drank wine and afterwards she slept with a supervisor. She said it was rape and the supervisor said it was consensual. She complained to the management. Her complaint came to nothing and she found she couldn’t continue to work for the company. Her complaint didn’t hold water, I learned. She was an adult and knew what she was doing. Why did she go to his place after the party?
The supervisor was in his fifties, married and had a past of similar incidences. Eventually, the supervisor paid several tens of thousands to her. The word “compensation” hit me hard. What happened to the girl may be not unusual and what the pretty girl looked like is rather vague in my memory, but the sharp bitter pain I felt about ten years ago when I heard the word compensation has stayed.
I often wonder what she would do with the cash and whether she would feel humiliated about herself when she thought about the amount. In my eye, behind the so called compensation is a gaping abysm.
I worked in India in 2016. After learning I was going to work in India, my friends asked me to be careful. I realized that the same bad thing could happen to me. I learned about very vicious rapes there through media. BBC produced a documentary based on these cases.
It was in India that I read about the “Stanford Sexual Assault” case in the international page of The Times of India. The rape occurred on the Stanford campus in 2015. The suspect was arrested on the spot. There were witnesses. The hospital provided a complete report on the victim. She drew national headlines in 2016 when she confronted Brock Turner during sentencing with a powerful statement about the impact he had on her. The jury found the defendant guilty on three counts. Turner was sentenced to six months in jail. Her victim impact statement instantly went viral after it was posted online, viewed by eleven million people within days. It was read on the floor of Congress. The judge in the case was recalled in 2018 because of the outrage over Turner’s sentence. While reading all this in India, I could feel the rage of the Indian reporter. In 2019, I as a book editor felt the same rage when reading the proofs of Know My Name.
I received the translation documents on March 31, 2020. The translator had shut herself up at home largely because of the pandemic. The translating work for months at home gave her no room to escape from the sentiment seething and tormenting. She said, “You can feel what I have been feeling over the past months when you go through the translation.”When Chanel Miller made her statement at the court, she used Emily Doe as her name. Now she stepped forward and revealed her real identity to the world, hence Know My Name.
The book is full of details graphic, ruthless, and suffocating. Even today I can feel the blunt force of the book. I wanted the book to be printed in a day and marketed on the next. I wasn’t sure if the world could change a bit because of the book, but I knew the book was the only thing I cared at that moment and I wanted it out onto bookshelves as soon as possible for Chinese readers.
One night, I worked at the translation text as usual. Then I took a break and looked down at the street scene from the veranda. The cityscape was like a huge pantomime. Suddenly I thought these vehicles and pedestrians in the street below were a scene under the sea.
The sexually abused victim in the book I was editing and those I had read in the media suddenly popped up in my mind’s eye, struggling in the undercurrents beneath the sea surface.
Editing the book also gave me an experience of relief. Especially, I found the most soothing part of the book is how Chanel Miller left the nightmarish experience behind and rehabilitated with the assistance of her boyfriend and other friends and the public.
I was impressed by Chanel Miller’s description of diving in the sea with her boyfriend.
After the book went to press, I felt another round of relief. Thanks to the editing work I did, I have made friends with many people including some journalists and writers, and some commentators whose online comments on the book were used with their permission in the promotion of the book.
编者按:2020年 12月,香奈儿·米勒 (张小夏)入选福布斯2020年30位30岁以下精英榜。事件发生四年之后,张小夏作为受害者决定站出来,以真名推出纪实文学《知晓我姓名》(Know My Name)被16个语种翻译出版,这本书的中文版日前由世纪文景推出。人民日报客户端也刊发文章:《知晓我姓名》从受害者走向胜利者。中文版获2020豆瓣年度读书榜单并荣登社科纪实榜高分图书。本刊特邀了中文版译者、浙江外国语学院青年教师陈毓飞,编者上海人民出版社编辑杨沁一起解读《知晓我姓名Know My Name》。
一
2016年,我在印度工作。那时,印度接连发生了几起恶性强奸案例,残忍的作案手法令人心碎,BBC为此拍摄了纪录片《印度的女儿》。出发之前,每个知道我要去印度的人都会迅速地向我瞥一眼,眼里流露出意味深长的关切:“哦,那你要小心啊。”我慢慢从那种眼神里意识到,发生在我周围的耻辱也会成为自己的耻辱。
为了熟悉当地情况,我每天都会读当地的报纸,看看发生了什么新闻、媒体在关注什么。有一天我在《印度时报》(TOI)的国际版里猛然看到了“斯坦福性侵案”。
案子发生在2015年,犯罪嫌疑人被当场拘捕,有目击证人,医院提供了完整的受害报告,陪审团认定针对嫌疑人的三项性侵重罪指控均成立,最高可判14年监禁——但最终只判了6个月,实际减刑为3个月。因为他是名校学生,游泳健将,未来的奥运新星。
不幸中的万幸是,化名为埃米莉·多伊的受害者极具写作天赋,她在法庭上发表了长篇陈述,将自己遭受的痛苦、羞辱、迷惑、失望、愤怒以异常清晰的逻辑表达出来,她的呼喊既是个人情感的澎湃,也充满对他者的共情——一夜之间,这篇陈述在网络上燃烧起来,灼痛了美国人的神经,一位女议员带头在美国众议院全文朗读陈述,这也是性侵受害者的陈述历史上首次在美国国会众议院上被全文宣读;时任美国副总统拜登发表致受害者的公开信,强烈谴责美国文化中对性侵受害者的严重不公。
报道的字里行间,我都能感受到那个印度记者的兴奋。对一个女性地位全球倒数的国家来说,这样的声音太珍贵、太令人心潮澎湃了,它虽然看上去离现实如此遥远,却又如此迫近地存在于每个人心中的热望。
后来,有了林奕含事件。那个太美好的女孩,某些时刻房思琪甚至还会为侵犯她的老师渐渐衰老而感到忧心和愧疚。但房思琪精神崩溃了,林奕含最终离开了这个对她来说过于丑陋的世界。在一个微博树洞中,有上千名网友倾诉自己成长过程中被性侵的经历,她(他)们怀揣着沉甸甸的秘密,仍若无其事地生活着:微笑,购物,上班打卡。
这就是受害者的最终结局吗?为什么施暴者最后活得好好的,反倒是受害者来承担隐忍、羞耻、难以磨灭的痛苦,让她们在深夜里被回忆啃噬甚至被毁灭?
这是不对的,这是不正常的。受害者应该有另一种生存姿态。
2019年,当我以图书编辑的身份读到《知晓我姓名》样章时,我感受到了三年前那个印度记者的兴奋。埃米莉·多伊的故事有了结局。当她被逼入绝境,她站了起来,去战斗,去改变。事实上她做到了,犯罪者终生被注册为性侵罪犯,美国泳协对其终生禁赛。加州罢免了主审法官,并通过两项严惩性侵罪犯的新法案。但这还不够,她还要修复自己受伤的心,找回自己的名字和尊严。她写下这本回忆录,告诉世人:“我不是‘布罗克·特纳的受害者’。我不是他的任何东西。我不属于他。我的名字是香奈儿。我还是半个华裔。我的中文名是张小夏。”
她真的太棒了。
二
译者毓飞交稿是在三月的最后一天。因为疫情比较严重,她几个月来几乎足不出户,没了空间的转换,完全沉浸在文稿的世界中。她把译稿发给我的时候说:“相信你读译稿的时候,会知道我这几个月以来的感觉。”
香奈儿写自己最初意识到被性侵时的感觉,锋利而清晰:一种被寂静吞噬的恐怖。从一个是非分明的世界中脱离。这一刻并非痛苦,并非歇斯底里,亦非痛哭流涕。而是你的内脏变成了冰冷的石头。是纯粹的困惑伴随着一丝察觉。慢慢成长的奢侈已经逝去。由此开始的是残忍的觉醒。
她寫自己试图封锁、遗忘,将痛苦变成具象:“我把那天早上的记忆放进一个大罐子里。我搬着这个罐子,一层一层又一层地往楼下搬,把它放在一个柜子里,锁起来,然后轻快地走上楼去,继续过我以前建造的生活”。但创伤会像幽灵一般逡巡徘徊,令人措手不及地重现,“每当我想起那个早晨,就会多一个罐子。我的脑海被这些密封罐子塞满了。”最后,“我没有地方堆放它们。它们塞满了楼梯间,没法藏在在柜子里。我的世界里堆满了罐子,我没有地方坐,没有地方走,也没有地方呼吸。”
香奈儿笔下有大量栩栩如生的细节,这些细节把她还原为一个活生生的多面体,让人触摸到她生活的质地:爸爸办公室里橙子有鼓胀的脸颊,奶奶偷偷把巧克力带进法庭塞给她,她把营救她的两个瑞典学生的自行车画在床头……她用细腻、绵密、优美的文字书写了曾经温馨的家庭生活,书写了亲人、男友、朋友以及陌生人给予的爱,这些爱有多么温暖,那些痛苦就有多么冰冷而尖利。
但她没有被痛苦击倒。她把更多的力量用来生气和愤怒。网络对她的质疑和污名;法院开庭时间不断改期,将她和家人的生活彻底打乱;辩方律师故意询问细枝末节的问题,诱导她说出自相矛盾的话,甚至声称受害者在被侵犯的过程中获得了快乐……她艰难地挪动步子,紧紧拥抱真相,“保护着它,就像在一场可怕的风暴中保护一团小小的火焰”。稿子看了三分之一,鲍毓明案爆发了,我至今仍记得读到新闻时那种内心被钝刀一点点切割的感觉,然后有马匹在我心里飞奔:恨不得挟泰山以超北海,尽快、马上、现在就把稿子的流程过完,明天就发给印刷厂,后天就让它上市。我不知道这样做到底有什么意义,有多大意义,世界会不会真的因为一本书、一道声音而改变,而多久之后它又会被群体性遗忘,但摆在我面前只有这唯一的事。一天深夜,我看稿看得脑子有点昏沉,于是走到阳台上站了会儿。 窗外的車水马龙跟疫情前已经没什么区别了,即使在夜里,也有络绎不绝的车辆在路上奔波。
唯一不同的是街上很沉默,没有来往行人说话的声音,车辆默默打着灯,它们也知道疫情期间在公共场合张开嘴巴是一件危险的事。我忽然觉得这些车辆、车辆中看不见的驾驶员、书中的女孩、记忆中的女孩和自己都在夜晚的海底世界中潜水,生存像幽暗的大水一样覆盖着所有人。
三
香奈儿在书中也写过潜水。性侵之后,男友为了让她平复身心,和她一起去潜水,那是我觉得全书最精彩的段落之一。
鱼儿像五彩纸屑一样,在我周围自由地游来游去。有大块的石头,发光的意大利面条般的海葵。细长的白尖鲨身体紧贴着沙滩。芦苇一样的海带摇摆着,又长又懒。我给一条长着绿色大嘴唇的土豆形的鱼让路,它跌跌撞撞地匆匆而过,就像面试迟到了一样。一条正在摇头的鳗鱼,就像它正在吵架一样,完全不敢相信你刚才说的话。……我看着所有这些生物过着它们的日常生活,完全没有意识到自己的存在。在这个无言的世界里,自己如此渺小,无人注意,这是多么令人欣慰的事啊。我离开了痛苦,那种让我盲目的痛苦,让我梦想着陷入虚无的痛苦,让我想要消失的痛苦。如果这就是世界,你怎么会想离开呢?所有这些美丽和奇异。
我一边读一边感叹,写得真好啊,多么纯真,多么平静,那种始终游弋在残缺世界中的美好感觉。她并未沉溺于控诉,而是不断挖掘自己在精神和心理上的蜕变过程:如何在痛苦和自我否定中挣扎,如何经过漫长而曲折的修复过程,最终将伤痛内化为人生哲学的一部分。
她从自我束缚、自我纠结的循环里破茧而出,站起来,将自己融入广阔的受害者群体之中,向她们大声疾呼:这不是你的错。她不仅看见自己,还看见指控韦恩斯坦的好莱坞女星,看见倒在针对女性的枪击案中的亡魂,看见被家暴、用蹩脚的英文为自己申辩的华人女子,看见被警察开枪打死的黑人男子……这些人群和她有着某种相似的联结:或同为女性、华人,或遭遇不公,他们身后映射着更宽广的制度和文化问题。
对写作者来说,最重要的是同理心,看见那些被社会抹除的人,听见那些被沉默吞噬的声音,唯有如此,写作者才能克服自身的伤痛向更辽阔的世界敞开。
当她真正敞开自己,她知道自己已无需匿名。正如她在崔娃的访谈节目中所说,在决定使用真名的那一刻她已经深知自己是谁、自己的价值、自己的能力,如果一个人能深入了解自己,就不会再陷入纠结和迷乱。她真的太勇敢,当她脸上闪动着光,大声对世界上每一个曾有过伤痛的女孩说:
“毋庸置疑,你是无与伦比的,你是美丽的,有价值的,值得尊重的,不可否认,每一天的每一分钟,你都是强大的,没有人能把这一切从你身上夺走。”
四
书下印后,心中如释重负。做这本书的过程中遇到了很多善意:不少网友在Know My Name的英文版页面上留下了动人的评论,我曾给一些网友发信,询问能否在宣传文案中使用他们的评论,他们欣然授权。
不少我不认识的编辑同行都祝福这本书能遇见更多读者,我和一些记者和撰稿人也因为这本书结缘成为朋友。特别感谢译者毓飞和设计师赵瑾,这本书凝结着她们的才华、灵感以及辛苦付出的日日夜夜。
私心里,这本书也是给自己做个交代,为了那个女孩曾送我一盘葡萄、为在印度报纸上读到的那些血淋淋的案例、为微博树洞里孤独回响的留言……这些事发生了、被我看见了,就和我产生了某种联系,它们也在潜移默化地改变着我。总觉得对她们有所亏欠。现在还给她们这样一本充满力量的小书,心里好受多了,虽然也还是没有还清。
几天后,收到作者的邮件,她说:“让这本书和中国读者见面是我一直以来的梦想,谢谢你们将它带给中国读者,这对我和我的家人来说意义非凡。”
她在书中写到,每次妈妈带她回中国老家,外婆都会对她说:“你的酒窝真漂亮!脚真大!”外婆的祖母裹小脚。4英寸的脚。而现在,她的脚是9英寸半。经过奋力游弋,“每一代人都比上一代更自由一些。”
这种自由就是长时间潜水后浮出水面的感受——经过漫长的幽暗、经过重重叠叠的水的压力,我们重新回到空气当中,重新上岸,重新呼吸。
(作者:杨沁,《知晓我姓名》中文版编辑,
世纪文景/上海人民出版社,2020年6月版)
Let’s Go with Them to See
the Undercurrents of the World
Chanel Miller is the standard rape survivor formerly known publicly as Emily Doe who has come forward and revealed her identity in Know My Name in an effort to help others who have been sexually assaulted. The book has been translated into sixteen languages. The Chinese translation ranks high in a booklist for faction for 2020 at Douban, an authoritative website for rankings of books, television series, documentaries and feature films. In this issue of Cultural Dialogue we print three articles respectively by Yang Xin, the editor of the Chinese version of Know My Name, Chen Yufei, the translator who works as a teacher at Zhejiang Foreign Languages Academy, and Zhang Ci, Chanel Miller’s mother, who is an American Chinese. With Chinese ancestral roots, Chanel Miller’s Chinese name is Zhang Xiaoxia. Shortly after my college graduation I remember the day I went to visit my friend working for a company in Beijing. We were chatting when someone knocked on the door. A girl came in holding a plate of grapes for me. She put the plate down on the table and went out like a doe as if she thought her stay could disturb us. I saw her just for a brief moment. She was a pretty girl with long hair down the back. My friend said the pretty girl had a genial and lovely character and supervisors liked her. About six months later, my friend told me that the pretty girl had resigned shortly after the Spring Festival. At the company’s year-end party just before the Spring Festival, she drank wine and afterwards she slept with a supervisor. She said it was rape and the supervisor said it was consensual. She complained to the management. Her complaint came to nothing and she found she couldn’t continue to work for the company. Her complaint didn’t hold water, I learned. She was an adult and knew what she was doing. Why did she go to his place after the party?
The supervisor was in his fifties, married and had a past of similar incidences. Eventually, the supervisor paid several tens of thousands to her. The word “compensation” hit me hard. What happened to the girl may be not unusual and what the pretty girl looked like is rather vague in my memory, but the sharp bitter pain I felt about ten years ago when I heard the word compensation has stayed.
I often wonder what she would do with the cash and whether she would feel humiliated about herself when she thought about the amount. In my eye, behind the so called compensation is a gaping abysm.
I worked in India in 2016. After learning I was going to work in India, my friends asked me to be careful. I realized that the same bad thing could happen to me. I learned about very vicious rapes there through media. BBC produced a documentary based on these cases.
It was in India that I read about the “Stanford Sexual Assault” case in the international page of The Times of India. The rape occurred on the Stanford campus in 2015. The suspect was arrested on the spot. There were witnesses. The hospital provided a complete report on the victim. She drew national headlines in 2016 when she confronted Brock Turner during sentencing with a powerful statement about the impact he had on her. The jury found the defendant guilty on three counts. Turner was sentenced to six months in jail. Her victim impact statement instantly went viral after it was posted online, viewed by eleven million people within days. It was read on the floor of Congress. The judge in the case was recalled in 2018 because of the outrage over Turner’s sentence. While reading all this in India, I could feel the rage of the Indian reporter. In 2019, I as a book editor felt the same rage when reading the proofs of Know My Name.
I received the translation documents on March 31, 2020. The translator had shut herself up at home largely because of the pandemic. The translating work for months at home gave her no room to escape from the sentiment seething and tormenting. She said, “You can feel what I have been feeling over the past months when you go through the translation.”When Chanel Miller made her statement at the court, she used Emily Doe as her name. Now she stepped forward and revealed her real identity to the world, hence Know My Name.
The book is full of details graphic, ruthless, and suffocating. Even today I can feel the blunt force of the book. I wanted the book to be printed in a day and marketed on the next. I wasn’t sure if the world could change a bit because of the book, but I knew the book was the only thing I cared at that moment and I wanted it out onto bookshelves as soon as possible for Chinese readers.
One night, I worked at the translation text as usual. Then I took a break and looked down at the street scene from the veranda. The cityscape was like a huge pantomime. Suddenly I thought these vehicles and pedestrians in the street below were a scene under the sea.
The sexually abused victim in the book I was editing and those I had read in the media suddenly popped up in my mind’s eye, struggling in the undercurrents beneath the sea surface.
Editing the book also gave me an experience of relief. Especially, I found the most soothing part of the book is how Chanel Miller left the nightmarish experience behind and rehabilitated with the assistance of her boyfriend and other friends and the public.
I was impressed by Chanel Miller’s description of diving in the sea with her boyfriend.
After the book went to press, I felt another round of relief. Thanks to the editing work I did, I have made friends with many people including some journalists and writers, and some commentators whose online comments on the book were used with their permission in the promotion of the book.