Pearl S.Buck:The Cross-Cultural Envoy
赛珍珠：中西文化使者
Pearl was bom in Virginia, the United States in 1892 and her parents were Christian missionaries. When Buck was three months old, her parents took her with them on a mission to China. Buck would spend most of her forty years in China.
1892年，赛珍珠出生于美国佛吉尼亚州，父母都是 基督教传教士。她三个月大时，父母前往中国传教，带 她一起来到中国。随后的四十年，赛珍珠几乎都是在中 国度过的。
From childhood, Pearl spoke both Chinese and English. She learned to speak Chinese before she learn to speak English. She was most of the time taught by her mother and by a Chinese tutor. She grew up playing with Chinese children who referred to her as a “foreign devil”. She never developed the superiority toward the Chinese common among the families of western Christian missionaries. Rather, Buck, having grown up in China, was better equipped to recognize some of the absurdities of her parent’s profession, as is evident in her portrayal of Western missionaries in The Good Earth.
赛珍珠从小就会说英汉两种语言，不仅如此，会 说英语之前她就开始学说汉语，大部分时间她在母亲和 中文家庭教师的辅导下学习。她与中国孩子一起玩耍长 大，却常常被叫做“洋鬼子”。和大多数传教士家庭不 同，她从来不认为自己比中国人优越。相反，正因为在 中国长大，赛珍珠更能意识到父母职业的荒谬之处，这 一点在小说《大地》里对西方传教士的描写中可以发 现。
Buck returned to the United States to attend Randolph-Macon Women’s College where she did well academically and even achieved some measure of popularity. However, the country of her birth was largely unfamiliar to her, so she felt like a foreigner. After her graduation, she returned to China to take of her sick mother. Her first and only biological child, Carol, was bom a few years after she got married. Due to a uterine tumor, Buck had to undergo an operation called hysterectomy. Soon afterwards, she found out that her daughter was severely retarded. Almost at the same time, her mother died after her long illness. Despite these misfortunes placed on her life, she refused to be defeated.
回到美国后，赛珍珠就读于伦道夫•梅康女子学院,她学习成绩优异并小有名气。然而，故乡对于她来说却十 分陌生，她反倒觉得自己是外国人。毕业后她回到中国照 料生病的母亲。婚后生下了女儿卡罗，这个女儿是她惟一 的孩子。产后因隐患子宫肿瘤，她不得不做了子宫切除手 术。没过多久她发觉女儿智力发育极其迟缓.与此同时， 久病的母亲撒手人寰。不幸的事接二连三地降到她头上， 但她拒绝向命运低头。
The Good Earth, her second and best-known book was published in 1931. The novel quickly gained an international reputation. It sold 1,800,000 copies in its first year. It has been translates into more than thirty languages and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1932. It was made into a Broadway play in the same year and a Hollywood movie in 1937. It was cited in the decision to award her the Noble Prize for Literature, “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"a year later.
1931年，小说《大地》出版，这是她的第二部作 品，也是著名的一部。这部小说第一年销量达180万册, 迅速赢得国际赞誉，该作品被译为30多种语言，并于 1932年获得普利策小说奖，同年，《大地》被搬上百老 汇舞台，1937年在好莱坞拍成电影。一年后，由于她 “对中国农民生活的丰富和真正史诗气概的描述，以及 她自传性的杰作”，荣获诺贝尔文学奖。
Pearl Buck s works after 1938 are too many to mention. Her novels have continued to deal with the confrontation of East and West, her interest spreading to such countries as India and Korea. Her novelist’s interest in the interplay of East and West has also led to some activity in political journalism.
1938后，赛珍珠创作颇丰，不便--列举。她的小说依然关注东西方的对立，而其兴趣渐渐扩展至印度、 朝鲜等国家。作为小说家，她对东西方的相互影响深感 兴趣，这也使她从事了一些政治新闻活动。
Yet, in spite of the unparalleled influence of the nearly fifty books she wrote about China, she also devoted herself to humanitarian causes. She coined the word “Amerasian” and raised millions of dollars for the adoption and fostering of Amerasian children, often abandoned by their American parents stationed in the Far East. With her husband, she founded an adoption agency for children of mixed Asian and American parentage. These children were often outcasts in Asian countries because of their mixed blood and because they were often the illegitimate off-spring of American servicemen. Buck’s own family included nine adopted children as well as her biological daughter. The Child Who Never Grew told a personal story of her own daughter, whose mental development stopped at the age of four.
赛珍珠创作了近50部与中国有关的作品，其影响 无人能及。此外，她致力于人道主义事业。她创造了 “美亚混血儿”这个字眼，募捐数百万美元用于收养亚 美混血儿童，这些孩子大多是被在远东服役的美国父 母遗弃的。赛珍珠和丈夫建立了一所亚美混血儿收养机 构，接收美亚家庭遗弃的儿童。在亚洲国家，来自美亚 家庭的混血儿大多是美国军人的私生子，常常被遗弃。 赛珍珠家里有9个孩子，除了亲生女儿外全是收养的。 《长不大的孩子》讲述了她亲生女儿的故事，书中提到 女儿刚满4岁就停止了发育。
Buck also took an active interest in issues as diverse as the lives of immigrants in New York City and the Indian independence movement. In addition to these various causes, she fought constantly on behalf of the rights of women. She was a staunch supporter of free speech and civil liberties.
赛珍珠也关注各种各样的事件，如纽约移民的生活 和印度独立运动。此外，她还不断为妇女权利而斗争, 并坚定地支持言论自由，倡导公民自由。
Buck spent all her life trying to help people in the United States understand Chinese culture. She would write over a hundred works of literature, including novels, short stories, fiction, and children’s stories. Many of her life experiences are related to or in her books. She dealt with many topics including women, emotions, Asians, immigration, adoption, and conflicts that many people go through in life. She wanted to prove to her readers that universality of mankind can exist if they accept it.
赛珍珠一生都帮助美国民众了解中国文化。她创作 了一百多部文学作品，包括小说、故事和儿童文学等， 她把自己的生活经历都写进了书里。她的作品涉及众多 题材，涵盖妇女、情感、亚裔、移民、收养及人生际遇 等问题。她向读者证明，只要愿意接受，人类是存在广 泛的共通性的。
In other words in her lifetime she succeeded in opening Americans’ minds about social, racial, and gender injustice in her writing and her acts. She had a profound influence on the way Americans think about China and about international relations in general.
换言之，赛珍珠终其一生，用作品和实际行动成功 地改变了美国人对社会不公平现象、种族歧视和性别歧 视的看法，也对美国人如何看待中国和国际关系产生了 重大影响。 |