Krasnohorkay Laszlo
Yangtze Evening News (Reporter Cai Zhen) The masterpiece of the man booker International Award winner and the famous Hungarian writer Krasnohorkaj Raslo, the original novel of the movie "Satan Tango", is known for challenging the reader's extreme reading, and is also praised as the "impossible" translation into Chinese works. Not long ago, this literary translation problem was overcome by a Chinese translator living in Hungary. On the afternoon of April 1st, Yilin Publishing House invited translator Yu Zemin to nanjing pioneer bookstore to meet readers, and the famous writer Lu Min attended. Between the activities, Yu Zemin told the Yangtze Evening News reporter an interesting story before and after translating "Satan Tango".
Lu Min and Yu Zemin
Yu Zemin, who has long hair and a slightly dark complexion, looks a bit like a character from the novel, with several mysteries. Feeling the reporter's curious eyes, Yu Zemin emphasized the tone, "My hair is not long, and Laslo's long hair is longer than mine." ”
Yu Zemin said that he had known Laslo for 26 years, and when he talked about this mysterious writer who was famous in Europe, Yu Zemin had a light in his eyes, "Laszlo is really a genius writer, he is a novelist with philosophical ideas. He was proficient in music, had been a pianist in a band, worked as a data clerk, a reporter, and even a floor polisher, and after graduating from college, with a passion for serving society, he ran to a small ravine to become a village librarian. As for why he embarked on the road of literary creation, Yu Zemin introduced, "According to Lászlo himself, he experienced three fires, the first of which was a rural library, and the fire ruthlessly burned down all the houses and books, so he vowed to write more books." ”
Shortly after the fire, the 28-year-old Klaas began writing Satan Tango, "a debut work, but undoubtedly the most representative work of Klaas, although he later wrote a large number of works." ”
After the publication of "Satan Tango", it was favored by the film master Tal Bella, and Klaas became Tal's royal screenwriter, and almost all of Tal's films were adapted from his works. One of the most famous is "SatanIc Tango". In this seven-and-a-half-hour masterpiece, Tal Bella constructs a trivial and terrifying hell on earth with breathless long shots. Yu Zemin said, "The film and the novel are completely compatible. ”
Yu Zemin told reporters that in the early 1990s, he met Laslo by chance at a Hungarian friend's house, and the two became good friends, "Laslo traveled in many countries and was deeply attracted by Chinese culture." I accompanied him on many trips to China, and he also wrote several books related to China. ”
Laszlo's work ignited Yu Zemin's interest in Hungarian literature, which in turn became the source of his journey to translation. Yu Zemin recalled the moments of his and Laszlo's interactions over the years, especially mentioning that he had translated Laszlo's short story "The Trap of Ruz" around 2000 and subsequently published it in China's "Novel Circle" magazine. Because the Hungarian language is very unique, so few people asked about it, and the later translation of "Satan Tango" brought him a huge challenge, "his long sentences are also unique, and it is also a reading challenge for the vast majority of Hungarian readers, his sentence pattern is both difficult to read and very readable, delicate and rough, fine and grand, precisely structured, full of rhythm." If the translation is not good, it will make people feel breathless when reading. In the end, though, he accomplished this nearly impossible task, casting a miracle in the translation world.
Yu Zemin introduced that Chinese readers may not be accustomed to the writing style of Youlaslo, "but this style of writing is Laslo's at first glance, but I think he established his own style from the beginning, which is different from many Chinese writers." Laszlo is not writing by experience, but by wisdom. He is very good at using metaphors, but his works have a broader vision. Recalling the time of translation, Yu Zemin described it this way: "For me, this book is a kind of sadistic reading, a new experience, torture and enjoyment, suffocating pleasure; after pleasure, it is a more lasting suffocation. ”
Spanning just a few days and with few scenes, "Satan Tango" tells the story of a small, dilapidated village where a dozen villagers with nowhere to make a living staged in a live newspaper drama of alcoholism, adultery, voyeurism, betrayal, dreams and dreams in the rainy and muddy late autumn. Indifference and insensitivity brutally kill all life, until the appearance of two deceivers ignites everyone's hopes, leading them to take the cycle of death dance steps to the imaginary bright future... The constant dampness, the muffled cruelty, the scalp-tingling despair throughout the book, all of them have no room for autonomy, they are all slaves of hope, and the pawns of fate, including the writer himself, eventually merge with the doctor who keeps himself in his home and spies day and night and diligently records, manipulating the cobwebs and tying them up. We think we live in a hopeful world, where we know that the world is in the trap of the devil; we think that we may flee with long feet, and we know that we are a rice moth stuck to a spider's web. The history of mankind is a cycle that never escapes the evil circle of the devil.
Some of the most classic scenes in the book are vividly presented in the film: little Ashti abuses the cat to death, walks on the muddy road with the dead cat, the doctor who tries to record and control everything behind closed doors, the morbid and funny dance steps and carnival in the tavern... Together with Tal, László follows with great interest this group of people who do not know how to follow Satan, exploring the bottom line of man, and testing reality to madness.
Some readers have pointed out that the satanic tango has too much black content, but the author himself does not admit it. Laszlo said that everything has both tragic and joyful sides, "from this side it is comedy, that side is tragedy." Truth be told, I don't think Satan Tango is a dark work, it's not a tragedy, it's a tragicomedy about unfounded beliefs. I feel like my book is philosophy, it's about suffering. ”
About the author
Krasnohorkay László (1954—)
One of the most important contemporary Hungarian writers, winner of the 2015 Manbouk International Prize, including the Koshut Prize, the Laureate of the Republic, the Malloy Prize, the Jurów Attila Prize, the Moritz Zhygmund Prize, the Argonne Prize for The Arts, and in 2014 won the American Literary Prize.
About the translator
Yu Zemin
Translator and writer, currently living in Budapest, Hungary. He has translated about twenty works by important Hungarian writers such as Keltes, Esthaz, Malloy, and Nadş, and has been praised as the "Chinese Voice of Contemporary Hungarian Literature", and has won the "Open Book Award (Translation Category)", the "Zhongshan Literature Award" and the "Hungarian Cultural Contribution Award" issued by the Hungarian government.