［亞軍譯於2012年12月15日］
在諾貝爾文學獎頒獎儀式上的演講
作家、瑞典文學院院士、諾貝爾文學獎委員會主席培爾瓦斯特伯格
2012年12月10日
尊敬的國王和皇後陛下，
尊敬的各位王室殿下，
尊敬的各位諾貝爾獎得主，
女士們，先生們：
莫言是一位詩人，他撕下了程式化的海報宣傳，將個人從芸芸眾生中升華。他用嘲笑和諷刺的筆觸，批判曆史及其謬誤、貧窮、以及政治虛偽。他以嬉戲的方式和蓄意掩蓋的歡欣，揭露了人類生存最陰暗的一麵，在不經意間賦予其具有強烈象征意義的形象。
高密東北鄉是中國民間故事和曆史的體現。在真實世界中，沒有一次旅行能夠把我們帶入這樣一個世界，在那裏，驢與豬的吵鬧淹沒了共產黨書記的聲音，愛與惡獲得了超自然的形態。
莫言的想象力超越了全部人類生存體驗。他精彩地描繪了大自然；他完全知道什麽是饑餓；20世紀中國的殘酷曆史也從未被如此直白地描寫過：那些英雄們，戀人們，施暴者，匪幫，特別還有那些堅強、不屈不撓的母親們。莫言向我們展示了一個沒有真理、沒有常識、沒有同情的世界，這個世界裏的人魯莽、無助、並且荒誕可笑。
這些苦難的證明便是中國曆史上重複出現的同類相食。在莫言那裏，同類相食代表著毫無節製的消耗、無度、廢棄、肉欲享樂、以及莫名的欲望，隻有莫言才能超越所有禁忌的束縛試圖將這一切加以闡明。在小說《酒國》中，最精美的佳肴是一個烤熟了的三歲孩子。男童淪為專用食材，而女童，因為被忽視，卻反而得以幸存。這是對中國計劃生育政策的嘲諷：這個政策導致大量女性胎兒被墮掉，女孩不被看好，甚至連被吃掉的資格都沒有。莫言的另一部小說——《蛙》，整本書都對此進行了描述。
莫言的故事具有神秘和諷喻的含意，它們完全顛覆了所有的價值觀。我們從未見過那位毛澤東中國的標準式理想公民。莫言筆下的人物活力四射，用最無道德意識的手段和方式實現他們的生活目標，打破束縛他們的命運和政治牢籠。
莫言沒有描寫出一個海報宣傳上的共產主義幸福史，而是運用誇張、戲仿、以及神話和民間傳說的改寫等手法講故事，改寫了五十年的宣傳，這種改寫既令人信服，又具毀滅性。
《豐乳肥臀》是莫言最著名的以女性視角為主的一部小說，莫言在書中細膩地譏諷了大躍進和1960年的大饑荒。他嘲弄了用兔子給羊受精的革命偽科學，以及把懷疑者打成右派分子的做法。小說以九十年代的新資本主義結尾，而此時，化妝品製假者卻一夜暴富，並想通過雜交培育出鳳凰。
莫言在我們眼前塑造了一個已被人遺忘的農民世界，這個世界生動而實際，充滿辛辣而肉欲的氣息，既驚人的殘忍無情，又具快樂的無私。這個世界每一瞬間都那麽精彩有趣。作者通曉一切，並描寫了一切：手工藝術，鍛工手藝，建築，溝渠開挖，放牧，以及遊擊戰術。全部的人類生活似乎從他的筆尖流淌出來。
莫言比拉伯雷和斯威夫特——以及我們這個時代的加西亞·馬爾克斯——之後的大多數作家更滑稽，更驚世駭俗。他的風格五味雜陳，而且辛辣。在莫言織就的寬闊的百年中國曆史掛毯上，沒有輕歌曼舞的獨角獸和少女，隻有豬圈中的人生；而我們感覺到，在這個豬圈中我們大家都呆得太久了。意識形態和改革運動轉瞬即逝，但人的自我與貪婪卻永在。因而，莫言為所有敢於反抗不公的小人物打抱不平——從日本人的侵略，到毛澤東的暴虐，直至今天的發展狂熱。
在莫言塑造的家鄉，慷慨的道德與邪惡的殘忍交戰；對於願到這裏一遊的人而言，等待他們的將是一次大開眼界的文學探險。這樣一股史詩般的春潮難道從未吞沒過中國和世界嗎？在莫言的作品中，世界文學以令今人振聾發聵的雄音發出自己的心聲。
瑞典科學院向你祝賀。現在，我請你從瑞典國王陛下的手中接受2012年諾貝爾文學獎。
［演講英文稿，載於諾獎官網］
［http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2012/presentation-speech.html］
Presentation Speech at the Award Ceremony
for the Nobel Prize in Literature 2012
By Per Wästberg, Writer, Member of the Swedish Academy,
Chairman of the Nobel Committee
10 December 2012
Your Majesties,
Your Royal Highnesses,
Esteemed Nobel Laureates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Mo Yan is a poet who tears down stereotypical propaganda posters, elevating the individual from an anonymous human mass. Using ridicule and sarcasm Mo Yan attacks history and its falsifications as well as deprivation and political hypocrisy. Playfully and with ill-disguised delight, he reveals the murkiest aspects of human existence, almost inadvertently finding images of strong symbolic weight.
North-eastern Gaomi County embodies China’s folk tales and history. Few real journeys can surpass these to a realm where the clamor of donkeys and pigs drowns out the voices of the people’s commissars and where both love and evil assume supernatural proportions.
Mo Yan’s imagination soars across the entire human existence. He is a wonderful portrayer of nature; he knows virtually all there is to know about hunger, and the brutality of China’s 20th century has probably never been described so nakedly, with heroes, lovers, torturers, bandits – and especially, strong, indomitable mothers. He shows us a world without truth, common sense or compassion, a world where people are reckless, helpless and absurd.
Proof of this misery is the cannibalism that recurs in China’s history. In Mo Yan, it stands for unrestrained consumption, excess, rubbish, carnal pleasures and the indescribable desires that only he can attempt to elucidate beyond all tabooed limitations. In his novel Republic of Wine, the most exquisite of delicacies is a roasted three-year-old. Boys have become exclusive foodstuff. The girls, neglected, survive. The irony is directed at China’s family policy, because of which female fetuses are aborted on an astronomic scale: girls aren’t even good enough to eat. Mo Yan has written an entire novel, Frog, about this.
Mo Yan’s stories have mythical and allegorical pretensions and turn all values on their heads. We never meet that ideal citizen who was a standard feature in Mao’s China. Mo Yan’s characters bubble with vitality and take even the most amoral steps and measures to fulfill their lives and burst the cages they have been confined in by fate and politics.
Instead of communism’s poster-happy history, Mo Yan describes a past that, with his exaggerations, parodies and derivations from myths and folk tales, is a convincing and scathing revision of fifty years of propaganda.
In his most remarkable novel, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, where a female perspective dominates, Mo Yan describes the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine of 1960 in stinging detail. He mocks the revolutionary pseudo-science that tried to inseminate sheep with rabbit sperm, all the while dismissing doubters as right-wing elements. The novel ends with the new capitalism of the ‘90s with fraudsters becoming rich on beauty products and trying to produce a Phoenix through cross-fertilization.
In Mo Yan, a forgotten peasant world arises, alive and well, before our eyes, sensually scented even in its most pungent vapors, startlingly merciless but tinged by joyful selflessness. Never a dull moment. The author knows everything and can describe everything—all kinds of handicraft, smithery, construction, ditch-digging, animal hu*****andry, the tricks of guerrilla bands. He seems to carry all human life on the tip of his pen.
He is more hilarious and more appalling than most in the wake of Rabelais and Swift — in our time, in the wake of García Marquez. His spice blend is a peppery one. On his broad tapestry of China’s last hundred years, there are neither dancing unicorns nor skipping maidens. But he paints life in a pigsty in such a way that we feel we have been there far too long. Ideologies and reform movements may come and go but human egoism and greed remain. So Mo Yan defends small individuals against all injustices—from Japanese occupation to Maoist terror and today’s production frenzy.
For those who venture to Mo Yan’s home district, where bountiful virtue battles the vilest cruelty, a staggering literary adventure awaits. Has ever such an epic spring flood engulfed China and the rest of the world? In Mo Yan’s work, world literature speaks with a voice that drowns out most contemporaries.
The Swedish Academy congratulates you. I call on you to accept the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature from the hand of His Majesty the King.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2012
“The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012-Presentation Speech”. Nobelprize.org. 13 Dec 2012. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2012/presentation-speech.html
