名人认知系列 文人骚客14：A Word Warrior: Maxine Hong Kingston 文字勇士:汤婷婷

A Word Warrior¹: Maxine Hong Kingston

文字勇士:汤婷婷

Kingston was born in Stockton, California 1940, she was the 3rd of eight children to a Chinese immigrant parents, and the first to be born in America. Her American name, Maxine, was after a blonde who was always lucky in gambling². Ting Ting, her Chinese name, comes from a Chinese poem about self-reliance.

汤婷婷于1940年出生于加利福尼亚斯托克顿的一个中国移民家庭，家中有8个孩子，她排行第三， 是家里第一个在美国出生的孩子。她的英文名玛克辛取自一个赌运奇佳的金发女郎，中文名婷婷则来自一首关于自强自立的中文诗。

At the early part of her school education, she kept silent and for her talking was terrible. When she was in the fourth grade and all of a sudden a poem came out of her. By the age of nine, her progress in English enabled her to write poems in her new language, and though she was a gifted story-teller, she preferred the solitary³ task of writing. An extremely bright student, she won eleven scholarship that allowed her to attend the University of California at Berkeley. She began as an engineering major, but soon she switched to English literature.

刚上学时，她十分沉默，不敢开口说话，后来读4 年级时，她的脑海里突然涌出一首诗。9岁时，她的英语取得了很大进步，使她可以用英语写诗了。她生来擅长 讲故事，但她更喜欢静静地写作。天资聪颖的她获得了 11项奖学金，并因此得到了去加利福尼亚伯克利分校学 习的机会。她开始攻读工程学，不久转读英国文学。

In 1976，while Kingston was teaching creative writing at a private school, she published her first book, The Woman Warrior. It details the experiences of first-generation Chinese Americans. It combines Chinese folk stories, myth, and her family’s experience as immigrants in the United States. Though considered as a memoir⁴, it was, in fact, a novel about Chinese in the world. It won the national Book Critics Circle Award, and became a literary classic.

1976年，汤婷婷在一家私立学校教写作，当时出版 了她的第一部作品《女战士》，该书详细描述了第一代 美籍华人的经历，巧妙地将中国民间故事、神话传说以 及她的家庭漂洋过海到美国的经历揉合在一起。尽管被 视为传记，该书则是描述全球华人的作品。并赢得了国 家书籍评论奖，成为文学经典。

As well as being praised for her literary works, Kingston must also be noted⁵ for her vision of the kind of borderless world we could create if we try -now that we are all more or less world citizens, regardless of our origins. But more than that, if you substitute the word “Chinese” with “human” in Kingston’s passage, you have a question to pose the whole world. Kingston’s is a moral vision, one to guide not only writers, but all who challenge tradition, history and old-fashioned notions of identity.

汤婷婷不仅以其文学作品广受赞誉，也因对世界无 国界的展望而闻名：我们同为世界公民，不管我们是何 种血统，只要努力，就可以创造出一个无国界的世界。 不仅如此，如果你将汤婷婷作品中的“华人”全部换成“人类”，你就对整个世界提出了问题。她的作品是一种 道德洞察，不仅可以指导作家，还可以指导所有挑战传 统、挑战历史和挑战旧式身份认同观念的人。

For Kingston, writing has been central in her life. “My writing is an ongoing⁶ function, like breathing or eating,” she explains. “I have this habit of writing things down. Anything, and then some of it falls into place as in China Men and Woman Warrior.She admired the changes a storyteller can implement⁷ when she or he tells the same tale many times, and in her work, she tries to remain this freedom to change a story’s interpretation⁸ by guarding ambiguity⁹ in the static writing. Doubt is part of every story, not certainty, and that is part of what makes her writing unique.

对汤婷婷来说，写作就是她的生活中心。她解释 道：“我觉得写作对我来说就像呼吸或吃饭，是种持续不 断的技能。我习惯随时随地写作，任何东西都可以写。 其中有些随笔写进了《唐人》和《女战士》中。”她很 羡慕那些讲故事的人，在每次复述故事时总能自如地使 每次讲的故事有所不同。在她自己的作品中，也尝试保 持静态文字的模糊性，保留自由发挥的余地，令不同的 读者有不同的阐释。不确定性成为她作品的组成部分， 这也是她的作品独一无二的部分原因。
 

1 warrior   

n.勇士，武士，斗士

参考例句：

• The young man is a bold warrior.这个年轻人是个很英勇的武士。
• A true warrior values glory and honor above life.一个真正的勇士珍视荣誉胜过生命。

2 gambling   

n.赌博；投机

参考例句：

• They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
• The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。

3 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

4 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

5 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

6 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

7 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。

8 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

9 ambiguity   

n.模棱两可；意义不明确

参考例句：

• The telegram was misunderstood because of its ambiguity.由于电文意义不明确而造成了误解。
• Her answer was above all ambiguity.她的回答毫不含糊。