《時代》雜誌最近出爐的世界一百名最有影響的人物名單中，有三名當代美國作家入選，他們是 Khaled Hosseini，Elizabeth Gilbert 和 Stephenie Meyer，碰巧這幾位都是我喜歡的作家。
Khaled Hosseini 出生在阿富汗，其父是一名阿富汗外交官。在蘇軍占領阿富汗期間，Hosseini 和他的父親逃離了他們的祖國，輾轉移民到美國，他的成名作，The Kite Runner，就是根據他早年的經曆寫成的自傳體小說。Khaled Hosseini 是一位生活在舊金山的醫生，從事業餘寫作，迄今為止共出版了兩本書（The Kite Runner 和 A Thousand Splendid Suns)，都是 New York Times 上的暢銷書。尤其是 The Kite Runner 一書，被好萊塢拍成了電影，並譯成許多文字，影響了世界各地成千上萬的人。正像美國總統夫人 Laura Bush 在下麵的介紹中所說的，“很少有人寫第一本書就獲得成功。更沒有幾個人能夠用自己的寫作改變世界。而43歲的 Khaled Hosseini 這兩點都做到了。”
Elizabeth Gilbert 曾經是頗有名氣的雜誌專欄作家，她的 Pilgrims 一書曾獲 PEN/Hemingway Award。但真正讓她大紅大紫的是2006年出版的 Eat，Pray，Love。在這本書中，Gilbert 敘述了她去意大利，印度和印度尼西亞的遊曆，通過遊記的形式描述了她心路曆程的蟬變和升華，對生命和生活的意義做了深刻的探索。Gilbert 選擇這三個都是依英文字母 “I” 開頭的國家，代表了她情感心智厲練的不同階段和方麵：去意大利是為了享受那裏的語言，美食和醇酒，滿足感官上的愉悅，更多的是形而下的追求；在印度，通過練習瑜珈和體驗禁欲生活，作形而上的反省，是為了靈魂的洗禮；而在印尼的巴厘島，也是她文化苦旅的最後一站，她終於找到了自己的真愛和友誼，找到了溝通形而上和形而下的和諧所在，達到了身心平衡。該書是 New York Times 的最佳暢銷書，獲 New York Times Notable Book 稱號，並被譯成20多種語言。據說好萊塢已經將 Eat，Pray，Love 一書的版權買下，準備拍成電影，由 Julie Roberts 主演。但是，對於一本側重描述心靈成長的故事，如何把它通過電影的蒙太奇語言在銀幕上表達出來，應該是一個不小的挑戰。
Stephenie Meyer 可算是在 Harry Potter 的作者 J.K.Rowling 之後的另一位（坐家）女奇人。她是一位住在 Phoenix 的家庭主婦，丈夫工作，她在家裏照顧三個孩子，此前從未從事過寫作。據 Stephenie Meyer 講，有一天她做了一個夢，夢見一個女孩和一個俊美的吸血鬼在樹林裏幽會。第二天，她把這個夢悄悄的記了下來，從此一發而不可收拾，隻用了不到半年的時間就完成了小說，Twilight。之後又出版了 New Moon 和 Eclipse。 Twilight 係列榮膺 New York Times，Publisher Weekly 和 Amazon 最佳暢銷書稱號，並在世界各地30多個國家和地區發行，成為 Harry Potter 之後青少年讀者的閱讀新寵。好萊塢根據該書拍攝的電影，也將於今年年底發行。除了吸血鬼題材的詭異，再加上浪漫，懸疑等暢銷書要素外，Twilight 係列最大特點是浪漫而不訴諸感官欲望，這在情欲橫流甚至有人張揚“用下半身寫作”的今天，實在是一件讓健康的心智感到欣慰的事情。另外，通過寫吸血鬼和人之間的愛情恩怨來宣示浪漫情感的真諦，也算是浪漫小說的一種極致了。
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Intro from Time as follows.
Khaled Hosseini
By Laura Bush
Not many people write successful first novels. Still fewer are able to change the world with their writing. Khaled Hosseini, 43, has done both. His 2003 novel, The Kite Runner, introduced readers around the world to the people of Afghanistan. Four years later, he published A Thousand Splendid Suns—and helped his audience see the faces of the women under the burqas.
Hosseini's stories are set against the backdrop of Afghanistan's tumultuous history. His complex portrayal of human nature, however, transcends geographic boundaries. In more than 40 languages, readers everywhere can recognize the best and worst in humanity in his characters—often in the same person.
In America, Hosseini's writing has invited many to look beyond the post-9/11 stereotypes about his birth country. We have grown to see Afghanistan as a land of men and women, each with their own hopes and longings for love.
The U.S. office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recognized The Kite Runner's impact by naming Hosseini the 2006 Humanitarian of the Year. Since then, his work as a goodwill envoy has taken him to the homes of returning Afghan refugees and to camps in eastern Chad.
Hosseini has said his novels intertwine the "intimate and personal" with the "broad and historical." As President Bush and I have encountered him through his writing and his work, we've discovered that his life does much the same.
Bush, an activist on behalf of Afghan women, is First Lady of the U.S.
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Elizabeth Gilbert
By John Hodgman
If you are the person in America who has not yet read Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, this is a beautiful book about Liz's journey around the world after her divorce. It has touched countless lives, including Oprah Winfrey's, and I was glad of this, because I am Liz's friend. But when I saw her on Oprah, I was also angry: "What about her beautiful short stories?" I yelled at the TV. "Talk about those, Liz!" But she didn't. Liz just smiled radiantly and kept on changing lives.
Because we are friends, I get to call her "Liz" Gilbert. In fact, I sometimes don't even say "Gilbert." Just "Gilb." We met when we appeared in The Paris Review's "New Writers" issue in 1996. But she wasn't new. As a writer, she was already accomplished, funny and wise beyond her years. As a person, doubly so.
When my mother was dying, I asked Liz if she believed in an afterlife. Of everyone I knew, I figured Liz, 38, was probably the only one who had really thought it through. The answer she offered is still a great comfort to me, though I won't reveal it here. It's private; plus, I don't want to ruin sales of my next book, Liz Gilbert's Answer Regarding the Afterlife. I know a moneymaker when I hear one.
So I really was not surprised when I heard she would be on Oprah. It's about time, I thought. But when I saw her there, I was angry and jealous. I suddenly understood how many people now knew my friend Liz, and how those of us who love her would now have to share her. I can accept that now. That is good. But it won't stop me from telling you that my friend Liz wrote the best short story I have ever read. It's in Issue 141 of The Paris Review, and it will make you gasp.
Hodgman's actual next book is More Information Than You Require
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Stephenie Meyer
By Orson Scott Card
Nobody was looking for Twilight. A Mormon housewife writes a young-adult novel about a love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire?
Is this Anne Rice lite? Not in the eyes of the teenagers—and their mothers—who have embraced the book.
But Stephenie Meyer's Twilight does raise some questions, and I've asked them. "You really want your teenage daughter to live inside the story of a girl who lies to her parents, invites a boy to sleep in her bed and trusts him not to take advantage of her?"
These women look at me as if I'm insane. "But she can trust him. He really loves her. He's...perfect."
In an era when much of the romance genre has been given over to soft porn, and dark fantasy is peopled with one-dimensional characters bent on grim violence, many readers have become hungry for pure romantic fantasy—lots of sexual tension, but as decorous as Jane Austen.
Meyer, 34, did not calculatedly reach for that audience. Instead, she wrote the story she believed in and cared about. She writes with luminous clarity, never standing between the reader and the dream they share. She's the real thing. Still, who'd have thought it? Today Mr. Darcy is a vampire.
Card is author of Ender's Game, Empire and Women of Genesis
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