三月初，在北京的三里屯正上演着一场极具文化气息的盛会。杂志的主编Scott早就对这个国际文学节倾心已久，在真正揭开那层华丽的序幕时，我们也有幸目睹了中外文学艺术家们对文学的执着以及追求。热爱书籍、热爱文学的人永远都在不断自我追求和促进的道路上互相勉励。
就在书虫所举办的国际文学节夺去了众人的视线时，它背后的故事也同样散发着迷人的光彩，从最初的创意到艰辛的发展过程到现在的盛大文学节，这些都构成了书虫自身独特的企业文化，并吸引着越来越多的目光。
爱书的人应该都不会拒绝它的魅力，只因为大家有共同的嗜好，并因此而走到了一起，相聚在书虫。

The Beijing Bookworm Bonanza
北京书虫文化节


The Bookworm, in Beijing's Sanlitun area, is an odd building. From the outside, it looks like a greenhouse placed haphazardly on top of a large green shoebox, accessed by a flight of treacherous wooden stairs. The second you step through the doors, however, you find yourself transported into a scene that would make any second-hand bookstore owner green with envy.
在北京的三里屯，有一个与众不同的地方——书虫。从外面看它就像是一个偶然间放在巨大的绿色楼顶的温室，入口是一个看起来有些摇晃不牢固的木楼梯。走进大门，你会发现自己来到了一个可以让任何二手书店商都嫉妒不已的奇幻之地。

For it is here, amongst the crowded bookshelves and chic cafe-style bar tables, that Beijing's literati come to hang out, read, and hear the hottest new authors, poets, and directors talk about their works. Part library, part cafe, the Bookworm is Beijing's literary centre – and a home away from home for the city's expat community. Patrons come here to gossip, to work, or to relax and read one of the 16,000 books that line the café-cum-bar-cum-library's dozens of bookcases.
在拥挤的书架和别致的咖啡式吧桌旁，北京的文人骚客齐聚在这里闲谈、看书，或者听时下最热门的新锐作家、诗人、导演讲述他们的作品。书虫既是图书馆也是咖啡馆，现在它俨然成为了北京的文化中心——是外国友人们在这个城市的另一个家园。老顾客们在这里谈天说地、工作、休憩、或者翻阅咖啡桌吧台旁的书柜上将近16000本的各色书籍。

So when the Worm announced their second Beijing Bookworm International Literary Festival (or BBILF, for short), a celebration of Chinese and English-language writing from a broad spectrum of topics, it didn't take long for the word to get around. For weeks prior to the Festival's opening, people were talking about the line-up, the topics, and deciding which events they'd want to attend.
因此，当书虫宣布即将举办第二届北京书虫国际文学节（简称为BBILF）——一个主题广泛的中英文写作盛会时，这并没有花费多少时间来宣传。在文学节开幕的前几个星期，大家都在热烈地讨论具体的流程安排、主题、还有自己要参加的活动（文学节为期两个星期，由一系列活动组成，因此大家会根据需要有选择性地参加）。

An impressive range of talks were scheduled, covering just about every literary angle imaginable. Authors like novelist Nury Vittachi, journalist James Kynge and the Chinese-American short-story writer Yiyun Li were asked to speak, and flew in from around the world to discuss their works and ideas with Beijing's book lovers. There were movie directors, slam poets, novelists and musicians all making appearances, so when the Festival finally opened its doors, it came as no surprise that the place was packed.
让人印象最深的是计划中的一系列讲座，包括你所能想象到的每一个文学角落，几乎无所不至。像著名的小说家努雷?维塔奇、记者詹姆士?金奇、华裔美籍短篇小说家李翊云都被邀请来此演讲，他们从世界的各个不同角落汇集于此，和北京的书迷们一起讨论他们的作品。还有很多电影导演、朗诵诗人、小说家、音乐家都出席了这次活动，因此当文学节最终开幕的时候，这里人潮拥挤就在意料之中了。

From the opening talk to the final farewells, the festival's programme was filled with some of the rising stars and established masters of the literary world; to name but a few, crime writers Qiu Xiaolong (Death of a Red Heroine, A Loyal Character Dancer) and Catherine Sampson (Falling Off Air, Pool of Unease) introduced their audience to the dark world of crime fiction and how it relates to society, travel journalist and Lonely Planet stalwart George Dunford taught wannabe Michael Palins about the joys of travel writing, and award-winning slam poet Miles Merrill thrilled and shocked audiences with his outspoken rhymes.
从最初的开幕致词到最终的闭幕仪式，文学节上到处都是文学界新星以及泰斗的身影。下面仅仅是一些例子而已，侦探小说家裘小龙（《红英之死》、《忠字舞者》）、凯瑟琳?萨姆森（《未安塘》）将观众带进一个犯罪小说的黑暗世界并且描述了它与现实社会的联系；孤寂星球系列旅游书籍的作者之一——旅游记者乔治?敦弗德向想成为迈克尔?巴林斯那样的人宣传了旅游写作的快乐；而获奖无数的吟颂诗人迈尔斯?梅里尔用他直率简洁的韵律震撼了观众。

Over the course of the fortnight, 40 authors, writers, poets and other creative geniuses took their turn in the hot seat. There weren't just talks, either; the Bookworm offered plenty of chances for festival-goers to muck in and produce their own work or pick up new skills. For example, Scottish poet Liz Niven held a poetry workshop (as well as discussing some of her poems, a reading of which you can hear on the Bilingual Time website) in which attendees were invited to discuss poetry ideas, share their works, and try their hand at writing their own pieces.
活动为期两周，将近四十位作者、作家、诗人还有其他富有创新思维的杰出人物轮流出现在万众瞩目之地。不仅仅是讲座，书虫还给前来参加活动的人提供参与互助、创造作品以及展示新技能的机会。比如苏格兰诗人莉兹?尼文举办了一个小型诗歌研讨会（其中也讨论了一些她自己的作品，在《双语时代》的网站上可以听见录音），参加者都纷纷讨论自己的诗歌见解、分享自己的作品、并且尝试自己创作。

"During the workshop, many different styles and forms of poetry were discussed," she later commented. "And participants, even from the same stimulus, wrote quite varied poems. That's the wonderful thing about creative writing workshops, discovering how people go about creating something new every time."
莉兹随后总结：“在诗会上，大家讨论了各种不同类型不同形式的诗歌。而参加的人，尽管是基于同一个灵感，但写出来的作品也不尽相同。这是创造性写作研讨会最奇妙的一点，讨论人们是如何一直创造新的东西。”

The Bookworm held their first Literary Festival several years ago, celebrating Indian literature and bringing several authors to Beijing for a week of discussion. The festival has existed in some way, shape or form since then, but this year's effort has trumped every effort so far. Alex Pearson, owner of the Bookworm, told Bilingual Time: "It's just grown organically. After the Indian Literature Festival, we would regularly feature a few authors at the same time, which is what constitutes the festival, basically."
书虫在几年前举办过第一次文学节，庆祝印度文学并且邀请了数位知名作家来北京进行交流。从那时起文学节就以多种途径、方式、形式存在，但很显然今年的努力在各方面都取得了很大的成效。书虫的创立者，艾利克斯?皮尔森这么告诉《双语时代》：“它正在有序地发展中，（印度文学节后）我们会固定在同一时间邀请一些知名作家，这也是文学节的一个基本构成。”

The presence of other festivals – in Hong Kong and Shanghai – also helped cement the BBILF into the Bookworm's annual calendar. With China's growing literary scene, it made sense for Beijing to have a festival of its own. "The festival in Hong Kong was getting bigger, the festival in Shanghai was getting bigger, and we were getting bigger and bigger names coming in", said Alex. "Rather than one or two a month, we were getting one or two authors coming in each week, and we knew we were in pole position to run our own festival."
而其它地方，比如香港、上海的文学节也促使北京书虫国际文学节列入书虫的年度日程表。鉴于中国蒸蒸日上的文学事业，北京拥有自己的文学节更显得意义非凡。“香港和上海的文学节正在日益壮大，我们也在努力地发展使得自己更加充实更具影响力，” 艾利克斯说。“我们并不是一两个月，而是每个星期都会邀请一两位作家来书虫做活动，我们很清楚自己要的是什么，而现在我们在举办属于自己的文化节方面处于领先地位。”

With this in mind, Alex and her team began planning and plotting the 2008 festival – an event that was to be bigger and better than any of Alex's previous efforts. The organisational side of things was made a lot easier by the timely arrival of Jenny Niven, the Bookworm's resident events manager. "Having Jenny on board made an enormous difference," said Alex. "It's just impossible to run three businesses (Alex also runs Bookwrom branches in Chengdu and Suzhou) and manage a festival, but if you've got someone who can really focus on how to get the authors, how to create a festival that'll be interested to a wide variety of people, then it's a lot easier."
树立了这个目标，艾利克斯和她的团队开始计划和安排2008年的盛会——一场比艾利克斯以前所举办过的任何活动更盛大更高品质的文学节。而书虫的常任事务经理，詹妮?尼文的到来使得很多程序上的事情变得更加简单。“有了詹妮的帮忙，事情完全不一样了，”艾利克斯说，“对于一个人来说在同一时间做三件事（艾利克斯同时经营书虫在成都和苏州的分店）还有文化节，几乎是不可能的。但如果有人来帮你确定作家名单、考虑如何举办一个吸引不同人群的文化节，一切就会变得更加得心应手。”

Many of the authors on the programme are personal acquaintances of the festival organisers – Roy Kesey, Catherine Sampson and James Kynge, for example, live in Beijing and are all regulars at the Bookworm. Others were met at festivals or events around the world – for example, Alex met Patrick Gale, a novelist and musician from Cornwall, England, while attending a literary festival in Bali, Indonesia. Using a network of contacts, old China hands and call-in favours, the team eventually secured enough writers, authors and speakers to make the two-week festival a reality.
许多名单上的受邀作者都是由于文学节组织者的私人关系才会出席——比如骆一康、凯瑟琳?萨姆森以及詹姆士?金奇都居住在北京，也是书虫的常客。其他则是在世界不同文学节或者活动上认识的——比如，艾利克斯就是在印度尼西亚的巴厘岛文学节上结识了来自英格兰康沃尔的小说家、音乐家帕特里克?盖尔。通过网上联系、中国通以及电话邀请，这个团队最终确定了足够数量的作家、作者、演说家来保证两个星期的文学节成为现实。

After months of planning, the 2008 Beijing Bookworm International Literary Festival finally got underway on March 6th, with Qiu Xioalong and Beijing-based novelist Adam Williams discussing the writer's life, the trials and tribulations of being a professional storyteller, and how they got started in the industry. Setting the scene for the rest of the festival, the two writers kept the standing-room-only audience spellbound as they gave anecdotes, advice, and insight into what it means to be a writer today. It was a triumphant preview of the kind of quality and expertise that would be on display over the next two weeks.
经过几个月的筹划，2008年北京书虫国际文学节最终在3月6号顺利开幕，裘小龙和居住在北京的作家亚当?威廉斯讲述了作家的人生、考验、成为一个专业作家所要经历的磨难，以及他们是如何开始自己的写作生涯的。这两位作家所描述的趣闻轶事、给予的建议、以及在今天这个社会里作家的意义如此吸引人，使那些只有站立空间的观众听得入了迷，这一切都为文学节的余下部分打下了良好的基础。在质量和专家方面来看这是一个良好的开端，接下来的两个星期将会继续慢慢上演。

Taking on the festival's governing theme - Chinese Fiction - the next talk also featured Qiu Xiaolong, this time in conversation with Catherine Sampson and Paul French discussing the do's and don'ts of crime fiction. Both writers feature China very heavily in their stories – Qiu (who left China in 1989) sets his Detective Inspector Chen murder mystery novels in his hometown of Shanghai and, through them, also educates westerners about Chinese customs and traditions, while Sampson's hero, Robin Ballantyne, is a BBC journalist who keeps getting caught up in sinister circumstance. Their conversation included themes ranging from the moral and deep (police corruption, character flaws, and whether crime fiction is an accurate mirror of society) to the downright gory ("At what point do you decide he's not just going to be killed, but get his head chopped off?").
由于这次文学节的主题是中国小说，裘小龙再次成为人们关注的焦点，他与凯瑟琳?萨姆森以及詹姆士?金奇谈论了侦探小说的要点和禁忌。所有作家的作品里都充斥着浓郁的中国风——裘小龙（1989年离开中国）将他的陈探长所侦破的谋杀案的发生背景设为他的家乡上海；萨姆森的小说主角罗宾?巴兰汀是一个始终处于危险境地的BBC记者，他们的作品也向西方人介绍了中国的传统习俗。他们的讨论主题从道德（政治腐败、性格缺陷、侦探小说是否真的是社会的一面镜子）深入到赤裸裸的血腥话题（“如何判断他不仅仅是被杀而是被砍头了”，这是观众提的问题）。

Throughout the course of the next fortnight, over 30 similar events would be equally well attended, with audience members coming from all over the world. There were more panels, workshops, a cabaret night, and a pair of book launches. On the next few pages, you will find a brief rundown of some of the talks featured at the 'Worm, along with a brief history of Beijing's favourite bibliophile hangout and exclusive interviews with some of the authors featured in the festival. If you didn't manage to make it to the Bookworm this time round, Beijing listings magazine City Weekend have put up live blogs and podcasts of the various talks on their website. Check out www.beijingbookworm.com/festival to catch up on anything you may have missed.
通过接下来两个星期的历程，这30多个相似的活动每场都吸引着很多来自世界各地的观众前来参加。文学节有很多的座谈会、研讨会、舞会、以及新书发布。在下几页你会看见书虫里一些演讲的简要提纲、北京藏书家常去之地的简要历史以及文学节上的一些作家的独家专访。如果你没有时间亲临书虫的文学节活动现场，北京的一份杂志《北京周报》的网站上将会有很多演讲的博客以及播客。你可以登录www.beijingbookworm.com/festival去看看任何你可能错过的活动。

There's no doubt in anyone's mind that the 2008 Beijing Bookworm International Literary Festival was a roaring success, and preparations are already underway to make 2009's incarnation bigger and better. So, if international literature is your thing, keep an eye on the Bookworm's website for any news of next year's festival and make sure you get your reservations in early! We look forward to seeing you there!
毫无疑问，在每个人的心中2008年北京书虫国际文学节取得了巨大的成功，而2009年的文学节的筹备已经提上日程，相信会比今年的更盛大更精彩。因此，如果国际文学是你所爱，那么你就要关注书虫的网站等待来年文学节的新闻，以保证你能够尽早预定席位。我们期待着能在那儿见到你。
Interview
作家专访
Qiu Xiaolong裘小龙
（BT代表双语时代，Q代表裘小龙）

BT: You left China in the late 80's, and moved to the States. What made you choose America?
BT: 在上世纪80年代你离开中国去美国，是什么原因使你选择了美国呢？

Q: I left China in 1988 as a Ford Foundation fellow to do research in the States for a year. What happened in 1989 changed my plan. I stayed on. One thing led to another. That's where I am now.
Q: 1988年我获得福特基金资助赴美深造一年，但1989年发生的一些事改变了我的计划。我留在了美国。事情接踵而来，计划赶不上变化。所以现在我居住在美国。

BT: How did you find adapting to the American way of life? Was there a significant culture shock?
BT：你是怎样适应美国的生活方式的？有没有很强烈的文化冲击？

Q: Perhaps like other people, I did not find it easy to adapt to American way of life, particularly for the first few years. Culture shock, of course, but not that significant.
Q: 可能和很多人一样，我觉得适应美国的生活方式有点难，尤其在最初几年。文化冲击当然有，但并不是那么强烈。

BT: Your lead character, Inspector Chen, and yourself share many interests. Do you see a lot of yourself in Chen Chao? Did you base him on yourself?
BT: 你笔下的陈侦探和你有很多共同兴趣爱好，你在陈超的身上看到了自己的影子吗？或者你就是以自己为现实基础来创造这个人物的？

Q: No, I did not base him on myself, though we share some interests. Poetry and food, you may say, but I've never been a cop or a Party member.
Q: 不，我并非是以自己为原型，尽管我们有很多共同的兴趣爱好。诗歌、美食，但显然，我不是警察也不是党员。

BT: Your books contain a very in-depth study and explanation of various aspects of Chinese culture; do you intend them to be educational?
BT: 你的书有很多关于中国文化不同方面的研究和解释，你是否想进行这方面的文化教育呢？

Q: New Criticism talks about "intentional fallacy." It's really up to the readers to decide, but I don't see myself as an educator in that sense.
Q: 新的评论说这是“有意图的谬论”。但这取决于读者，我并不认为在扮演教育者的角色。

BT: What made you decide to create a series of murder-mysteries set in Shanghai?
BT: 你为什么要将这一系列神秘谋杀小说的背景设为上海？

Q: Shanghai is my home town, still most familiar and interesting to myself, and it's a matter of course for me to have the series set in Shanghai.
Q: 上海是我的故乡，也是我最熟悉和热爱的地方。自然我就把这一系列故事的背景设在上海。

BT: Some of your critics claim that the novels are too predictable - that it's too easy to work out whodunnit. However, others say that the "who" isn't so important, it's "how" and "why" that matter. What do you think is important when writing a crime novel?
BT: 一些评论家称你的小说有“预见性”——很容易猜出谁是凶手。然而，另外一些评论则认为“谁是凶手”并不重要，重要的是过程和原因。那么你认为在写一个犯罪小说时最重要的是什么？

Q: For me, a crime novel is never enough if it's just about whodunnit, but it's another story if it explores how and why a crime takes place - in the historical and cultural and social background.
Q: 对我而言，犯罪小说不仅仅是侦探刺激小说，而是另一个研究犯罪发生的过程和原因的故事——在历史、文化、社会背景下。

BT: How would you describe your relationship with China? Do you still consider it home? And would you ever be tempted to return permanently?
BT: 你怎样描述你和中国的关系？你仍然把它当成自己的家吗？你曾经想过要回国定居吗？

Q: I come back regularly. Perhaps as Heraclitus says, you cannot step twice into the same river, but it's the river I'll nonetheless step in, again and again.
Q: 我经常回国，希腊哲学家赫拉克利特曾经说过，你永远不会两次踏入一条相同的河流。但这却是一条我永远都会不断踏入的长河。

BT: What will you be doing during the Book Festival?
BT: 在书虫文学节上你将会参加哪些活动?

Q: Talking about my books, reading and discussing with fellow writers, I think.
Q: 谈谈我的书，阅读方面的东西，然后和其他作家进行讨论。

BT: And lastly, what's next for Inspector Chen?
BT: 最后一个问题，陈侦探的下一步计划是什么？

Q: In the next installment, Inspector Chen is coming to Beijing. The French edition will come out in May.
Q: 接下来陈侦探将来到北京。法语版本也将在五月推出。



*******更多精彩尽在《双语时代》********