Tag Archives: Carol Ann Duffy

流亡英国的叙利亚女作家萨马尔·亚兹贝克获得本年度品特文学奖de英勇作家奖

Posted on by
Reply

流亡英国的叙利亚女作家萨马尔·亚兹贝克（Samar Yazbek）与英国桂冠诗人卡罗尔·安·达菲（Carol Ann Duffy）一起分享了2012年度品特文学奖（Pen Pinter Literary Prize）。桂冠诗人达菲已于2012年7月获颁品特文学奖。该项奖励中还有一项“英勇作家奖”（the Writer of Courage Award）是专门奖励国际上那些遭受迫害但依然勇敢反抗，坚持自己的信仰，敢于发出声音的作家的。获选作家由已经获得品特文学奖的作家提名。萨马尔·亚兹贝克因而获此殊荣。以下是BBC提供的相关介绍：

Syrian writer Samar Yazbek to share Pinter prize

Exiled Syrian author Samar Yazbek is to share this year’s Pen Pinter literary prize with poet Carol Ann Duffy.

The author has been a vocal critic of President Assad’s regime

Yazbek is being recognised for her book A Woman In The Crossfire, which is based on diaries she kept during the early stages of the Syrian conflict.

It details how her outspoken views against President Assad’s government led to persecution, and her decision to flee Syria with her young daughter.

Duffy, who is Poet Laureate, was named the winner of the main prize in July.

The annual award – in memory of the playwright Harold Pinter – is given to a British writer of outstanding literary merit.

The winner then chooses a recipient for the Writer Of Courage Award, which recognises an international writer who has been persecuted for speaking out about their beliefs.

Duffy was given a shortlist by the English Pen Writers At Risk Committee, and made her announcement at the British Library on Monday night.

Yazbek said: “I am grateful to English Pen, and to Carol Ann Duffy, for selecting this book, and through it, for supporting our cause.”

Lady Antonia Fraser, Harold Pinter’s widow, added: “Carol Ann Duffy’s recognition of Samar Yazbek’s courage in writing about Syria’s revolution from the inside could not come at a more appropriate time”.

‘Raw passion’

Born in 1970, Yazbek comes from the same Alawite clan as President Bashar al-Assad.

Prior to the uprising, she wrote extensively on women’s issues in newspapers and journals, while challenging taboos in her novels.

Her second novel Salsal (Clay) cast a critical eye over the power of the military, while Cinnamon – which is due to be published in the UK next month – looks at the social divide in Syria through the prism of a servant who enters into a lesbian relationship with her employer.

When protests against the Syrian government began last March, she voiced her support online. She received hate mail, her family disowned her and, eventually, she was arrested and shown the cells she would be kept in, if she continued to support the rebels.

After further intimidation, she fled to Paris in July 2011 – although she has said: “I return all the time, but in secrecy. Undercover.”

Woman In The Crossfire tells the story of the first few months of the uprising, via her own story and testimony from ordinary Syrians.

The Spectator praised the book’s “uncompromising reportage from a doomed capital”, while the Washington Post said it “brought the cause of the opposition – and its raw human passion for liberation – into focus”.

The UN estimates that more than 20,000 people have died in the conflict in Syria, while hundreds of thousands more have fled over the country’s borders.

Tensions with neighbouring Turkey have escalated over the last week, after Syrian mortar rounds landed in the Turkish town of Akcakale, killing five.

 

桂冠诗人达菲：微博短信息是一种现代的诗歌形式

Posted on by
Reply

卡萝尔·安·达菲（Carol Ann Duffy）是第一位女性桂冠诗人。在最近的一次访谈中，达菲发表了她对当代诗歌的一些看法。其中之一就是，她认为，当下盛行的微博短信息是现代诗歌的一种形式，是非常适合脸书一代（Facebook generation）的诗歌载体……为此，达菲发起了微博诗歌大赛。目的是让更多的孩子能够走进诗歌的世界……

Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy says texting is a modern form of poetry and an ideal vehicle for the Facebook generation.

Duffy is the first female poet laureate

“The poem is a form of texting… it’s the original text,” Duffy said in an interview with the Guardian.

“It’s a perfecting of a feeling for language, it’s a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.”

Duffy is launching a competition for secondary school pupils, who will be invited to write their own anthologies.

Entrants can be groups or individuals. They will be given a budget to work with, and the aim is to encourage a stronger relationship between children and the world of poetry.

The deadline for entries is 1 March 2012 and the winning anthology will be announced three months later.

‘Bookless house’

The winner will be chosen by a panel of judges including Duffy, Liz Lochhead, the Scottish makar (national poet), and Gillian Clarke, the national poet of Wales.

Their anthology will be published by Picador, and Duffy will visit the winning school.

She told The Guardian she was passionate about placing poetry at the heart of the school curriculum because school was the first place she was introduced to poetry.

“I grew up in a bookless house… so if I hadn’t had the chance to experience it at school, I would never have experienced it.”

Duffy, who became the first female poet laureate in 2009, added: “The poem is the literary form of the 21st century.

“It’s able to connect young people in a deep way to language… it’s language as play.”

【信息来源：BBC News】

英美文学琐记【200905】

Posted on by
1

1. 英国桂冠诗人一职设立341年以来，终于出现了第一位女性桂冠诗人，卡萝尔·安·达菲（ Carol Ann Duffy）。请点击这里，查看详情。

厄普代克，拍摄于1960年

厄普代克，拍摄于1960年

2. 作为一位小说家，约翰·厄普代克（John Updike）对自己的诗歌才能和诗作一向比较低调。他因此给了那些一脸严肃的批评家们以口实，宣称厄普代克根本就不是诗人。厄普代克是一位诗人。也出过几部诗集。虽然多是清新俊咏的抒情诗作，但却都是具有完整艺术效果的作品。即使是那些已经颇为有名的诗人，也很少有几位能够像他那样，把诗歌形式的各要素处理得如此恰到好处的。为数不多的较为严肃的诗歌作品也能充分体现出他在其小说作品中所表现出来的语言的活力和潜能。现在，作为厄普代克的遗作之一，诗集《终点：诗歌选辑》（Endpoint: And Other Poems）已经于2009年4月正式出版了。可以再次让我们读者领略到小说家厄普代克的诗歌的魅力。这个诗集中的“终点”（Endpoint）诗是作者自2002年以来每年一首创作而成。诗集中的其它诗歌则选取了那些与“终点”诗有着相同主题的那些，使得整部诗集都有一个共同的主题。而回首往昔则是其中的重要内容。请欣赏其中的这首：

The lawn’s begun to green. Beyond the Bay —
where I have watched, these twenty years, dim ships
ply the horizon, feeding oil to Boston,
and blinking lights descend, night after night,
to land unseen at Logan — low land implies
a sprawl of other lives, beneath torn clouds.

John Pipkin, Ph.D. in British Romantic Poetry

John Pipkin, a Ph.D. in British Romantic Poetry

3. 亨利·大卫·梭罗（ Henry David Thoreau）曾经放火烧过一片树林。1850年，在他的记述中，梭罗本人就曾简要地提及过。但是几乎所有有关梭罗的传记作品却都有意无意地或略了这个细节。而于今年四月出版的一部小说，却将梭罗曾经对大自然犯下错误的细节重新摆放在人们的面前。这部作品就是由约翰·皮普金（John Pipkin）创作的《树林纵火者》（Woodsburner）。这是作者皮普金的第一部小说。这部作品将虚构的梭罗和历史人物梭罗结合在了一起。给读者们提供了很多新的视角去重新审视梭罗这个人物。这部小说如果与梭罗的各种传记配合着来读会更有意思。对梭罗研究者们来说，这部小说也具有很好的启发意义。

4. 英国著名的反文化斗士，一向以特立独行作为自己行为准则的约翰·米歇尔（John Michell）去世。享年76岁。点击这里，查看更加详尽的介绍。

5. 女权主义战士玛丽莲·弗兰奇（Marilyn French）去世，享年79岁。点击这里查看更加详尽的介绍。

6. 纳博科夫研究专家，小阿尔弗雷德·阿佩尔（Alfred Appel Jr.）去世，享年75岁。点击这里，查看详细介绍。

Reynolds Price

Reynolds Price

7. 作为一个回忆录作者，雷诺兹·普莱斯（Reynolds Price）应该算是一位老派人物了：他把回忆录看作是回首年轻时候某一关键的、亦或感动肺腑的特别时刻的机会。而当这位76岁高龄的、代表美国文人的资深政府要员对詹姆斯·弗雷（James Frey）表现出一副敬而远之的冷漠态度时，我们不能不承认，这是我们这个时代令人悲哀的一种表现。年轻一代的回忆录作者（和伪回忆录作者）们当中掀起的一股风气就是对他们刚刚经历过的事情进行再创造——编造一些所谓的痛苦事件和痛苦时刻。如果说这样的回忆录经不起人们的推敲和验证，那么这至少是因为他们过分迎合了一种即使被欺骗了也不愿意被人告知的窥探隐私的热情。弗雷的《万千碎片》（Million Little Pieces）和玛格丽特·B·琼斯（Margaret B. Jones）的《爱，之果》（Love and Consequences）都属于这一类：你把他们当作虚构小说还说得过去，或者还可以不予理会。普莱斯虽然没有指名道姓，但是在他新出版的回忆录作品的前言里表达了他对弗雷和琼斯之流的愤怒。而他本人的回忆录则很好地向人们展示了老牌正统的回忆录应该是怎么样的作品。普莱斯的回忆录《热情如火：出走和归来》（Ardent Spirits：Leaving Home and Coming Back）展示了作者1950年代的生活和成长历程。其中涉及到很多当年英美文学界的重量级人物，具有较高的史料价值。

Janet Frame published eleven novels in her lifetime, together with four collections of short stories, a book of poetry, an edition of juvenile fiction, and three volumes of autobiography.

Janet Frame published eleven novels in her lifetime, together with four collections of short stories, a book of poetry, an edition of juvenile fiction, and three volumes of autobiography.

8. 《迎来又一个夏天》（Towards Another Summer）是新西兰作家珍妮特·弗赖姆（Janet Frame, 1924-2004）1963年的一部小说。由于作者认为太过私秘，在她有生之年一直没有发表。现在这部作品终于与读者见面了。据说（本人还没有读过）这部作品描写了一位类似于塞缪尔·贝克特（Samuel Beckett）早期三部曲中塑造的那位表面粗鲁内心脆弱细腻的莫洛伊小姐的形象。这部小说的发表，应该又给女性主义文学研究提供了极好的研究素材。关于弗赖姆夫人，本人不甚了了。查阅了维基，才略有了解。如果你对这位作家感兴趣，也可以先到这里了解一下她的基本情况。纽约时报上的这篇评论文章也比较全面。感兴趣者可以点开看看。