Yi Lijun: Polish literature is an eternally bright spiritual world

It was the morning of October 11, 2019, and The reporter of Beijing Youth Daily and Teacher Ma Guowei, editor of Houlang Publishing, went to the family building of Beijing Foreign Chinese University. Yi Lijun, an 83-year-old teacher, opened the door for reporters.

The night before the visit, the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes in Literature were announced at the same time. Olga Tokarczuk, a famous contemporary Polish writer, won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. At that time, the headlines of the news were cold and niche, and Chinese readers were not familiar with the Polish poet, and the first to be translated into China by Tokarchuk was polish translator Yi Lijun and her husband Yuan Hanrong.

"A couple of reporters called me last night, and I don't know where it was, and when I came, I would talk nonsense, and then Another one, and I would talk nonsense." Yi Lijun is 83 years old, but her loud voice, straightforward and cheerful personality, and humble personality have left a deep impression.

In the Polish translation industry, Ms. Yi Lijun has a very high academic status. In 1960, She graduated from the University of Warsaw, Poland, with a postgraduate degree in Polish Language and Literature. He has successively served as an editor and reporter of the Soviet And Eastern Europe Department of the Central Broadcasting Bureau, a teacher, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of European Languages of Beijing Foreign Chinese University, and a director of the Beijing Translation Association. He has been awarded the Polish Medal of Merit for Cultural Merit (twice), the "Knight's Cross of the Republic of Poland" and the "Cross of the Officers' Cross of the Republic of Poland" by the President of Poland, the Medal of Merit of the Polish National Education Council, the Honorary Doctorate of the University of Gdansk, and the title of "Senior Translator of Foreign Literature" by the Association of Translators of China.

During the interview, Teacher Yi Lijun talked about her husband many times. Yi Lijun and her husband, Yuan Hanrong, were classmates when they studied in Warsaw, and in the 1950s, an international train brought them to Poland, where they spent an unforgettable study year. After returning to China, Yi Lijun worked as a translator, and her husband Yuan Hanrong was a researcher at the China Atomic Energy Academy and a former deputy director of the China Nuclear Data Center. "Both Yi Lijun and Yuan Hanrong are veteran Polish translators, and without the translators of the two translators, we would probably miss tokarczuk." Ma Guowei, senior editor of Houlang, introduced.

Translating Tokarczuk is an episode of Yi Lijun's translation career. "It's a friend's face." In 2004, at the age of 70, Yi Lijun almost stopped translating, and she felt older. At that time, a Publishing House in Taiwan wanted to publish Tokarczuk's Taikoo and Other Times and the Scrapbook of Collecting Dreams, "And their editor-in-chief found a comrade named Shen from the old Triptych, who found the editor of World Literature, my good friend Yang Leyun, who told me that Tokarczuk was worth translating, so I asked her to take a look." Yang Leyun in Yi Lao's mouth is a famous Czech literary translator, while the "Comrade Shen" mentioned by friends is Shen Changwen, the former editor-in-chief of Sanlian Bookstore.

The first to get it was "Taikoo and Other Times". "I looked at it and I thought it was interesting." Yi Lijun said she felt that Tokarczuk was a strange woman. "Her pen and ink are very agile, and the layer of things she speaks on the surface is a layer of meaning, and under the cover of the surface layer, the deep true meaning must be carefully looked at to understand."

This was the first encounter between translator Yi Lijun and Tokarczuk. The translation of "Taikoo and Other Times" was completed and became the bestseller in Taiwan that month. Such a result Yi Lijun also did not expect.

Remember the day when the Nobel Prize was announced that year, many similar evaluations in the media made Tokarczuk a "dream catcher", "a dream maker" and "a dreamer", making Tokarczuk an author suspended in mid-air. But in the understanding of Teacher Yi Lijun, she saw the deep meaning hidden in Tokarczuk's words. Yi Lijun said that if you summarize it, the search for roots is what Tokarczuk has always been concerned about: "She is pursuing two roots, one is the root of her own life, the other is the root of her nation, where are the roots of the Polish nation, this is a deep thing." ”

In Yi Lijun's view, Tokarczuk's feelings for the Polish nation and the way of entering history are not very different from the poet Milosz, another Polish Nobel laureate. "I think Milosz is more philosophical, while Tolkachuk is loyal to epics. She shows the reader the better side of the Polish nation, and the bright spots hidden deep in the national character — the poles are not afraid of death, strong and brave, and these are achieved in her works through endless death. Yi Lijun said that unlike Milosz's direct praise of heroes, Tolkachuk's writing feels pleasant: "It is like telling you that I write to please the soul, my creation is pleasant, and I hope you feel happy too." It's a lot like Cimborska. During the conversation, the three Polish writers who had won the Nobel Prize were all mentioned concisely and concisely by Yi Lijun.

Teacher Yi Lijun spoke very plainly, asking how much and talking. Listening to the speeches of the older generation of translators is a very different feeling, they will not tell how much research they have done, they will never exaggerate those blockbuster comments; they have a kind of in-depth and simple ability, after a lifetime of solid research, they can still face ordinary problems with sincerity and simplicity, explain the problems clearly, and will not be mysterious.

Yi Lijun wrote a high-quality translator's preface to "Taikoo and Other Times" that introduced Tokarczuk and this work to Chinese readers, while also placing Tokarczuk in the entire system of Polish post-war literary history, and in Yi Lijun's view, Tokarczuk had a transformation of Polish literature since the 1990s. This is part of Yi Lijun's research on Polish literature, and her research book "History of Polish Post-War Literature" is a must-read textbook for students majoring in Polish literature at the University of Foreign Chinese in Beijing.

"In the 1990s, there were many changes in the Polish literary scene." Yi Lijun wrote. To understand this change, it is necessary to understand the situation in Polish literature in the 1970s and 1980s: "The first condition for the independence of Polish writers is the courage to be critical, to dare to speak the truth, to expose the alienity of the regime and the shortcomings of totalitarian rule, and to expose the dark side of social life. This critical spirit demonstrates a condensed Polish character, acting as a protective armor against alienity. In the 1990s, many changes took place in the Polish literary scene. The younger generation of writers downplay history and regard literary creation as a pleasure for the soul, not only allowing themselves to enjoy the joy of making up stories, but also allowing readers to accept it effortlessly and easily... They disdained the task of liquidating the wrongdoers in polish reality for nearly half a century after the war. Their interests shift from 'big motherland' to 'small society'—that is, the family—from which they explore novel, ordinary, but also dramatic and enduring models of social life, based on human nature. Yi Lijun wrote.

For Teacher Yi Lijun, she looks at the Nobel Prize-winning writers with a broader historical perspective, and translates the search and research of life into Polish literature.

After Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize, the media boiled over for a while, and soon the tide receded. After the ebb and flow, the printed books were delivered to the hand, but they could not keep up with the cooling of niche literature. For the masses, Polish literature will soon return to niche literature until it is not known when it will be illuminated by international awards again.

For Yi Lijun, the things outside the window are not important. Polish literature is her eternally bright spiritual world, the negative of her life that will never fade.

Photography / Ma Guowei

Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Zhiyi

Editor/Ying Qiao