Reporter | Xu Luqing
Edit | Yellow Moon
1 "The Observer"
Italo Calvino by Bi Yanhong, translated
Yilin Publishing House 2022-01
From the first novel "The Path to the Spider's Nest", which originated from the experience of the Resistance Organization, to the later creation of the "Our Ancestors" trilogy, which devoted himself to fantasy and allegorical works; from the rich world of reality and fairy tales, to the writing of "The Castle of Intertwined Destiny" and "If a Traveler in winter night" after focusing on stylistic experiments, Calvino has always explored the infinite possibilities of the narrative art of novels. Pamuk said, "Calvino taught me that originality is as important as history itself"; Wang Xiaobo felt that "the art of fiction has infinite possibilities... I haven't explored infinity yet, far worse than Calvino. ”
The first publication of The Observer in China, the novel took a decade to create, a new subject that Calvino had never addressed before. He confessed: "The themes I have touched on in The Observer, namely the innate misfortune and pain, the responsibility for childbearing, are all things that I never dared to touch before. ”
The author's experience of two roles as a regional candidate and a scrutineer during elections inspired the creation of The Observer, which tells the story of amerigo's experience of voting at the Cotolungo election station, witnessing the absurdity and pain of people with intellectual disabilities and disabilities participating in the voting. Calvino attacks the paradoxes inherent in democracy on the one hand, and on the other hand, he speculates on many social problems: where does the "natural suffering" that has not yet become human extended? Where is the dividing line between nature, history and human industry?
"In the Ward Under the Rainstorm"
By Su Fang
One-way space 丨Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House 2022-01
Su Fang's short story collection "In the Ward Under the Rainstorm" contains eleven of her novels. Su Fang, who calls herself a "writer", was once a doctor, and in the book, she wrote and observed like a consultation, recording the people who failed in the plague, the inexplicable mental condition of a generation, and the chaos in the imbalanced era, and these emotional stories also carry memories of the epidemic. In these novels we hear or see laughter in the dark, people with hearts in their hearts, lost people with maps, pairs of eyes that look away...
"Heavy rain" is a metaphor for the disasters experienced by mankind, and the Soviet side believes that "these disasters are about technology, disease, environment, language, beauty and truth, and the progress of recessive behavior." In a dialogue, Su Fang mentioned that Yu Hua, who is also a doctor, influenced her writing, and Kundera and Shi Tiesheng are also the authors of her long-term reading, but the most important thing in writing is life, "In fact, as long as you are in life, you go down and go deep into the truth, not only for writing, but also for everything," she said.
"In the Ward Under the Rainstorm" is su fang's third collection of short stories after "Some Moments" and "A Stranger's Tale".
Dream Addiction: The Truth About the Opioid Epidemic in the United States
[Beauty] Sam Kunos by Shao Qinghua, translated by Lin Jiahong
Shanghai Translation Publishing House 2021-11
The critically acclaimed American drama "Addiction Dose" tells how opioids, which were supposed to be used to relieve pain, became evil pills that killed 400,000 people and addicted to a large number of users in the conspiracy of capital for profit, government corruption, and institutional perjury. The story of "Addiction Dose" is not fiction, it is based on investigative journalist Beth Macey's nonfiction work "The Drug Epidemic: The Drug Dealers, Doctors, and Pharmaceutical Companies That Made America Addicted."
In the United States, more people die each year from drug overdoses than from car accidents, and cases of drug abuse and addiction-related deaths occur at any time. In the documentary series, Dream Addiction, which also investigates opioid abuse in the United States, Los Angeles Times reporter Sam Quinos interviews young drug dealers, pharmaceutical industry professionals, DRUG Enforcement Administration agents, parents who have lost their children, and young people addicted to drugs. How are doctors' prescriptions related to heroin and death? How does reliance on painkillers allow heroin to enter mainstream society? Dream Addiction writes about how pharmaceutical companies and doctors packaged painkillers into merchandise sales, the trauma and decay of small people and communities, and reveals the secrets of how opioids have produced large numbers of addicts and created new drug marketing business models for Mexican drug dealers.
The Invention of Journalism: How the World Knows Itself
[English] by Andrew Pettigeri by Dong Junqi Translated by Tong Tong
Guangxi Normal University Press, Xinmin Said 2022-01
We are surrounded by news every day and rarely think about the news itself. What forces are controlling the news? What role did journalism play in politics, the Reformation, and social events? How has the entertainment and timeliness of news, and the credibility of journalists changed in history? The Invention of Journalism: How the World Knows Itself traces the history of journalism in several European countries from 1400 to 1800 and explores a wide range of topics, from the role of media history, the role of women in the history of journalism, to how people who are now overwhelmed by information can communicate and understand each other.
Before the invention of printing, people shared important social events with public festivals through oral transmission. Printing technology contributed to the emergence of newspapers and periodicals, and journalism has since become an important force influencing human society; the media have played an important role in historical events such as the Reformation, the discovery of the New World, and the French Revolution; and women have shown great power in the history of journalism for four centuries, from hunting for the curious or stigmatized "others" (such as the hunting events reported in the early news, deformed babies, witch stories, etc.) to being journalists, editors, columnists, and even media operators The invention of journalism is also the invention of public power, and journalism not only promotes the birth of a new political class, but also promotes more public participation. As the author historian Andrew Pettigre put it, "The invention of journalism, the invention of public power." ”
Broken Lives: The 20th Century Experienced by Ordinary Germans
Translated by Conrad H. Yalausch by Wang Chen
The Republic of Guangxi Normal University Press 2022-01
The Republic Translation Series published the Third Reich Trilogy by British historian Richard Evans in 2020, and this year the series launched the book, also focused on German history, Broken Lives: The 20th Century Experienced by Ordinary Germans. Unlike the trilogy's focus, in this work, the German-American historian Conrad H. Yalausch focuses on the daily lives of ordinary Germans in the 20th century, spanning a long historical period from World War I to the Great Depression, to Nazism and World War II, to the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Based on their first-hand accounts and recollections, Conrad tried to answer: Why did so many people support Hitler's war and Nazi brutality, and how did they end up cutting off from racism and dictatorship, from military aggressors to pillars of democracy in Europe?
Also known as the "M Series", taken from the initials of the English Mirror, the series aims to use the experience of other countries as a mirror to promote readers' understanding of China, and this series also includes francis Fukuyama's collection "Impressions of Japan Series". There are many new books to look forward to this year around the history of the Third Reich and the history of Germany in the twentieth century, including Hitler in Conspiracy Theories, Prisoner of History: Historical Narrative and Construction in World War II Monuments, and Sudden Courage: The French Youth Resistance Movement in World War II, 1940-1945.
Zhuye China: Twenty Years of Henry Mao Fei in China, 1914-1935
[Beauty] Guo Weijie by Lu Wei Cold Weather translation
Cultural Development Press 2022-01
Did you know that the first architect to revive classical Chinese architecture in modern times was an American? Henry Mao Fei's influence on China's architectural heritage has not received enough attention, and "Chikuye China: Twenty Years of Henry Mao Fei in China 1914-1935" fills this gap in architectural research. The book focuses on Mao Fei's architectural and urban planning concepts during the Republic of China period.
In 1914, Mao Fei designed the campus for the Yale-China Association, the earliest building he landed in China, and later he also participated in the design of the Great Hall in Tsinghua Garden, the Boya Tower and Bei Gong Building in Yanyuan, and important architectural landmarks such as Jinling Women's University and Fudan Public School. He is always exploring how to combine Western ideas with classical Chinese architecture, using the latest Western techniques to design traditional Chinese architecture.
Mao Fei's architectural significance is not limited to aesthetic or technical fields, but also has political research value, he served as an advisor to the National Government Capital Plan (Nanjing), provided urban planning solutions for the government, and participated in a large number of urban transformation projects at that time. From the back of Maofei's building, we can see how the game of multiple forces has shaped the appearance of the building, and how the church, the comprador, the American diplomat, the national government, and nationalism have jointly influenced and decided the construction project. We can feel that while understanding architecture, we are also understanding modern China and understanding globalization.
Spring Is Coming: David Hockney in Normandy
[English] David Hockney [English] Martin Gayford by Hu Yating translated by Yang Suyao
Zhejiang People's Fine Arts Publishing House 2022-01
What have artists been doing during the two years of COVID-19? In his eighties, artist David Hockney set up a studio in a farmhouse in Normandy, France, to depict natural spring scenes. Just as the virus struck, Hockney saw the lockdown as an opportunity for art creation, painting hundreds of iPads and posting them on social platforms.
"Spring Will Come– David Hockney in Normandy" is a collection of conversations and correspondence between Hockney, who was in the Normandy countryside during the pandemic, and art critic Martin Gafford, with a series of iPad paintings created during Hockney's time, screenshots of chat logs, and his spit and humor with friends. Hockney depicts country ponds, reflections of willow trees, buds of branches, and the shape of clouds, but also works with a unique sense of humor, such as observing the moon when going to the toilet and identifying the colors of asphalt roads when crossing the road. Hockney's brushes and jokes may make us feel that winter will always pass and spring will come.
David Hockney, along with Andy Warhol, has been called "the most famous living British painter" and has been in the public eye for 60 years. His work spans almost every medium, from oil painting, drawing, stage design to photography and print printing, and at the age of 73, he owned his first iPad and began to make extensive use of the iPad for artistic creation, subverting the habitual expression of brushstrokes and lines.
We Are All Africans: Using Science to Break The Ethnographic Superstition
Daniel J. Fairbank by Fu Qiang, translated
World Knowledge Press 2022-01
The total number of people on the planet is close to 7.6 billion, which contains about 2,000 peoples of 6 races. So where did humans originate? Why are there different skin tones and races? What are the scientific reasons for skin color differences? We Are All Africans cites the latest scientific research to clarify that the concept of ethnography is social rather than biological. Human diversity around the world is so complex that it is impossible to genetically define race, and ancestry is more medically significant than race for individual health.
Fairbank, the book's author, a professor of biology at the University of Utah Valley in the United States, summarizes the genetic basis of current human diversity and explores how these factors influence evolution. He challenged the idea that health and intelligence are related to race, emphasizing the role of human genetic variation and pigmentation. Modern evolutionary biology and genetics research is an indispensable part of the fight against racism, and in the midst of the divisions and conflicts of today's world, it is crucial to recognize that we share a common genetic heritage as human beings, as the book writes, "We are all closely related, more than 7 billion of us are distant relatives, and we are all African from the beginning." ”