In the winter of 2020, I wrote in a writing residency at an art center in the south of France. At that time, the new crown epidemic in France was serious, and it was not allowed to go out casually. In the midst of anxiety, I sat on the balcony every day looking at the calm or turbulent Mediterranean Sea, and the sea in front of me was like a sleeve stretching up and down, narrowing the distance between me and the distance, and memories and nostalgia came to me. Just then, the German publisher Matthes-Seitz wrote to me asking if I would be interested in making a translation of the epic novel Annette. I met the director of the publishing house for a long time, and he was interested in publishing a series of Chinese literature, and I made some suggestions. The president knows that I love poetry, and he also thinks that China, a big country of poetry, may have a potential readership of the book, so he hopes that I can translate and promote it. Reading the ups and downs of Anne Beaumanure, who lived not far away on the French Mediterranean coast, I was plunged into an epic sea of rhythms, and the legend of this French woman seemed so intimate and clear.
My anxiety about the inconvenience of going out was relieved in front of the sea, and the thrilling story of Ms. Beaumanuy, nicknamed Annette, also needed a grand structure. I once asked the author, Anne Weber, why she chose this ancient epic form. Weber's answer was unexpected, she actually chose the common writing method of the novel after writing a few pages in epic techniques at the beginning, but she couldn't write it at all. She had to return to the epic, and it was the structure of the epic that gave Annette's story a magnificent rhythm. Webb had no other choice. In her later years, Annette also wrote her own stories in the form of prose, but they were not selective and lacked literary flesh and blood. In my opinion, only the calmness under the calm sea of the epic can reflect the high wind and brilliance of this brave woman who clings to her ideals and does not seek fame and fortune. In the West, epics are usually celebrated by male heroes who have made great achievements, and even famous women do not choose this form to celebrate. Weber's lack of choice has enabled the expansion of the ancient form of epic poetry in our contemporary literature.
"Annette"
By Anne Weber
Translated by Li Dong
Published by Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House
Annette's life is indeed worthy of epic grandeur. She was born in Brittany, on the Atlantic coast of France, to a family that was not rich, but happy. She inherited her mother's attitude of scorning injustice and yearned for heroic deeds since childhood. While Wren was half-heartedly studying medicine, Annette came into contact with the party organization. From delivering packages and handing out leaflets to participating in stricter resistance, she was half a child and successfully rescued two Jewish children during a Nazi siege, and then put her lover and comrade-in-arms, Roland, in danger, convincing a mother full of doubts to let him take the infant boy. At this time, Annette had to sacrifice the child in her belly because of the needs of the revolution, and what supported her was an indescribable hope:
Maybe it's the wind, it's the sun, it's friends, sadness,
Rain, and all... Things that will be taken away,
It's dreams, it's charity, it's passion, it's the whole life.
Annette treated the two Jewish children she saved as her own and entrusted them to her parents' care. However, she and Roland received not a reward but a punishment. The organization felt that they had violated discipline by putting themselves and others at risk, and that they had to separate themselves. Soon after, Roland was captured and sacrificed, and Annette would not learn until many years later that Roland had been tortured to death.
...... She was single, twenty-year-old she was like
Living on the moon is so lonely. Similar to the Odyssey,
On a long journey, those who traveled with them died one after another,
She is cut off from her own background and history.
In those days, among those who passed by her,
No one knows her real name, her past,
And she herself can barely remember this.
She lives in her shadow. Like the Odyssey,
Ask her name, she doesn't have to cheat but can
Zhengda said brightly: "My name is Anonymous. ”
Annette gave up her children for the revolution, became a "nameless", lived a "submarine" life, and her lover was not heard from, she still insisted on fighting. With the Normandy landings and the crushing of the Nazis in Germany, she was sent organizationally to Marseille in southern France, where she participated in the purge, met General de Gaulle, and married again. Her new husband, Joe, was a leader of the anti-Nazi resistance movement and, like her, now practices medicine. Annette, who entered the life of the affluent middle class, did not stop fighting for the freedom of others. This time she opposed her own country, France, and supported Algerian independence. What she opposed was torture, unnecessary war, French colonial rule.
...... She thought
Once again, stand with the determined and invisible masses
Feel the power of unity,
Once again in the tide of history
Act for ambitious goals, again
Underground resistance, in danger, self-hiding. again
……
Experience fear, courage, luck, and live decently again.
Annette put aside her family and happy life, once again went to fight for others, and once again put her life and death on the line. She joined the Algerian National Liberation Front and became a driver for the head of the southern sector, but was betrayed and arrested and imprisoned, and later sentenced to ten years in prison. Through the rescue of friends, she was released on bail before trial and began a life on the run. She crossed the Mediterranean, threw herself into the fiery Algerian liberation movement, and worked day and night to save the wounded and children, while drifting away from her two sons who remained in France. Amid the political turmoil that followed Algeria's independence, she returned to Europe and practiced medicine in Switzerland for many years until she was granted amnesty in France. For nearly 30 years, Annette lived in the aforementioned south of France. At the end of the book, author Weber compares Annette to the Sisyphus of Camus's Greek mythology, starting again and again, desperately moving forward again and again.
Back to the top of the mountain, looking at the fragments of life,
Memory connects them.
Soon it will be sealed by death again.
All the effort and pain,
The struggle to reach new heights,
Enough to fill a person's heart.
Annette herself died in Brittany in March this year. Previously, she traveled back and forth between Brittany and the South of France, telling local students about her personal experience of the anti-fascist resistance. In the nearly 100 years of Annette's life, we only see her ups and downs echoing in Weber's touching and humorous language. Webb has mentioned to me more than once that when Annette heard that there would be Chinese version of the book, she laughed heartily, unable to believe that her story would be epic across the Eurasian continent she had never crossed to the shores of Chinese. In order to translate, I went to Brittany, and to the south of France, where I first met Weber and Annette literally. The Mediterranean Sea in front of me is still the same sea, but this time I miss "Annette like blue sky and white clouds". Although she did not meet in her lifetime, I hope that the translator will fill this gap. The fall of 2022 is here, and the inconveniences and anxieties caused by the epidemic are still daily life. I am delighted with the publication of Annette and the efforts to cross the ocean inside and outside the story. Even if there is no sea, there is "Annette" with it, there is still blue sky and white clouds, and there is no longer far away and hope.
Author: Li Dong
Editor: Zhou Yiqian