Author: Xia Yu
“The Unparalleled Awakening” is Xia Yu’s personal experience writing, revisiting the place of the 20th century, gathering Pamuk, Kundera, Kafka, Susan Sontag, Philip Roth, JM Coetzee , Milosz, Crema and other generation of outstanding writers’ soul silhouettes. The book not only has an in-depth description of the human geography of foreign cities, but also focuses on the thoughts of Chinese literary masters in the drastic changes of the times.
“Listening to the Writer’s Speech at the Swedish Academy” is an article that has no income in the book and is published exclusively by this newspaper. Convey the concern about reading, personal encounter and human destiny.
Winter in Stockholm has short days and long nights. The Swedish Academy lecture hall is brightly lit with hanging crystal chandeliers.
In the evening, the auditorium was full of invited guests, but there was little noise. On the podium is the German-Romanian writer Herta Müller delivering a literary speech “The Cycle of a Word”. She is wearing a well-tailored black suit, has short hair that reaches her ears, and wears glasses stuck to the tip of her nose. She was facing the microphone the whole time, immersed in the manuscript in her hand. Born in 1953, Herta Miller lived in Romania during the Ceausescu era. When she was young, she studied German and Romanian literature at the University of Timisoara. After graduation, she worked as a translator in a factory. An informant to the secret police who refused to report on a factory colleague was fired from the factory. Her life was monitored by the secret police, and fear became a part of her life. In 1987, Herta Müller immigrated to Germany and became a professional writer. In her speech, Herta Müller described her daily work in the factory and the tracking and constant Harassment brought her nightmares. The tone of her speech was calm, the audience listened quietly and patiently, and the scene was solemn and quiet.
At the Swedish Academy, I heard two lectures on literature, Herta Miller in 2009 and Harold Pinter in 2005.
Pinter was unable to go to Stockholm to accept the award because he broke his leg in the hospital, and the publisher brought him a video he recorded, speaking “Art, Truth, and Politics.” I was sitting in the auditorium of the lecture hall, listening to his speech through the screen with many guests. Sitting in a wheelchair, Pinter is a burly man with a blanket woven with a dark grid between his knees. He is dressed in a black suit, with a full forehead and piercing eyes behind the glasses. His face and body are projected on the screen. Pinter was sick, but his speech was powerful, and the lecture hall echoed with his thick and magnetic voice. His speech was full of fire, starting from his personal creative career, and political drama, and at the same time analyzing contemporary international politics. He severely criticized the then US President George W. Bush for launching the Iraq War, criticized British Prime Minister Blair for following the US in the war, and criticized the US He said that “politicians are not interested in truth but power” and “politicians are weaving tapestry full of lies”. Yet the screen magnifies Pinter’s stature and also reveals his frailty. In the lecture hall, Pinter could be heard panting through the microphone, occasionally pausing to catch his breath.
Pinter’s speech elicited occasional applause. At the end of the speech, the audience stood up and gave sustained applause.
Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize for Literature for a hundred years, literary speeches are one of the important activities of the Swedish Academy every year. However, the Swedes did not always see the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature they selected. In 1953, Winston Churchill was absent due to busy government affairs. In 1954, Ernest Hemingway was absent due to injury. Ternak was absent due to domestic criticism, Sartre was absent in 1964 due to his rejection of the Nobel Prize, Samuel Beckett was absent in 1969 due to his loneliness, Harold Pinter was unable to travel due to leg problems in 2005, and Yeh in 2004. Lineke was absent due to social anxiety, and Doris Lessing was absent in 2007 due to advanced age.
I have not heard but read and benefited from more speeches by writers, which are the voices of the wisest minds and outstanding hearts of the 20th century, such as German writer Thomas Mann (1929), American writer Eugene O’Neill (1936) 1946), Swiss writer Hermann Hesse (1946), French writer André Gide (1947), British poet T. S. Eliot (1948), American writer William Faulkner (1949), British philosopher Robert Russell (1950), former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1953), American writer Ernest Hemingway (1954), French writer Albert Camus ( 1957), Soviet writer Boris Pasternak (1958), Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata (1968), Irish writer Samuel Beckett (1969), Soviet writer Alexander Solzheng Qin.
Living in different eras—in war, between turmoil and conflict, living under tyranny, writers with outstanding creativity have broad vision and deep thoughts at the same time. They stand on the pulpit of the Swedish Academy and transcend themselves. The literary major expresses concerns about the world, thinking about the fate of mankind, and worrying about civilization. This is the power that a writer can show. It is the power of words and speech, the power of thought and expression. Because from the lecture halls of the Swedish Academy, their voices are heard all over the world. At the same time, it has been handed down to future generations with outstanding texts and has become a legacy of human civilization.
“Under the stars, hangs my fate”, T. S. Eliot’s poem can reflect the history of Nobel Prize literature.
The century-old history of the Nobel Prize in Literature is like a bright starry sky, and the stars shine forever to reflect the night sky of literature. With the passage of time and entering contemporary life, the Nobel Prize for Literature is affected by fashion like universal values. Not being entertaining is not enough to attract attention. This is a popular taste in the world, and it is also the law of influence. Entertainment alone is not enough, there must be scandals, entertainment and scandals become the stimulant of the media, entertainment and scandals become the power source to arouse the nerves of the public. The Nobel Prize for Literature, as the laurels of world literature with a century-old history, is now following the changes of the world, falling from the sacred palace to the secular valley. When the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature was full of controversy due to the selection of writers, its selection institution, the Swedish Academy, was deeply involved in a scandal-ridden public opinion storm, and its credibility was severely damaged, so that the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature was vacant due to the scandal of the Swedish Academy. It is an anecdote in the century-old history of the Nobel Prize, and it also makes the worldwide laurels dusty. Yet in matters of the human mind, reason will triumph over anti-intellect. The hustle and bustle of the world and the carnival of the common people will eventually dissipate like bubbles.
Reading life is intellectual life. Free intellectual life is what I like. When Rilke wrote about the sculptor Rodin, he had a motto: “You will be blessed with great things”.
When we read the classics of the century-old Nobel Prize-winning writers, we should also be comforted by the reflection of outstanding souls. (Xia Yu)
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责编：王营 ]