我将永远，站在鸡蛋的一边

村上春树在耶路撒冷文学奖上的演讲（中英文）

Good evening. I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.晚上好。今天我来到耶路撒冷，作为一个小说家，也就是说，作为一个以编写谎话为生的人。

Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and generals tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?

当然，小说作者们不是唯一说谎的人。政治家们，如我们所知，也说谎。外交官和将军们有时也说着他们那种类型的谎言，就如同汽车推销员，屠夫，和建筑师一样。然而小说家的谎言与其它谎言不同，因为没有人会指责他的谎言不道德。确实，他的谎话越大、他把谎话讲得越精巧、谎言被创造得越像天才之作，大众与评论就越会赞美他。这是为什么？

My answer would be this: namely, that by telling skilful lies--which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true--the novelist can bring a truth out to a new place and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth-lies within us, within ourselves. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.　

我的答案将会是这样的：那就是，通过讲述充满了技巧的谎言——也就是说，通过制造看上去真实的小说——小说家可以将真相放到一个新的所在从而让它显得更为清晰。而大多数情况下，要想从原始事态中抓住真相并且将它准确地描述出来实际上是不可能的。这就是为什么我们试着去抓住真相的尾巴，将它从它藏身的地方引诱出来，把它转移到小说式的所在，并且给它换上小说式的形态。然而为了做到这一点，我们首先必须弄清真相藏身于我们、我们自己内部的何处。这是一种创作好的谎言所需要的重要的能力。

Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are only a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.         

然而今天，我不想撒谎。我会试着尽量诚实。一年之中仅仅只有几天时间，我会不讲谎话，而今天碰巧就是其中之一。

So let me tell you the truth. In Japan a fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came. The reason for this, of course, was the fierce fighting that was raging in Gaza. The U.N. reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded city of Gaza, many of them unarmed citizens--children and old people.

所以请允许我告诉你们真相。在日本，许多人建议我不要来这里接受耶路撒冷文学奖。有一些人甚至警告我，说如果我来了，他们会对我的书发起抵制。这一切的原因当然在于，加沙地带所发生的惨烈的枪战。联合国报告说在封锁的加沙城有超过千计的人身亡，其中的很多是毫无武装的平民——孩子和老人。

Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.

从得知获奖之时起，我就问着自己，在这样一个时间去到以色列领取文学奖项是否合适，是否这会给人带来我支持冲突某一方、我赞同某国决意释放其势不可挡的武力的政策的印象。当然同时，我不希望看到我的书遭到抵制。

Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me-- and especially if they are warning me-- “Don’t go there,” “Don’t do that,” I tend to want to “go there” and “do that”. It’s in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.

然而最终，在细致地一番考虑之后，我决意来到这里。我作此决定的一个原因就是太多人建议我不要来到这里。也许就像其他很多小说家一样，我打算恰恰就要去做那些我被劝告不要去做的事。如果人们告诉我——并且尤其是如果他们是在警告我——“别去那儿”，“别那样做”，我则倾向于“就去那儿”，“就那样做”。也许你们会说，这是我作为作家的天性。小说家们都是怪胎。他们就是不肯相信任何他们没有用自己的眼睛看到或者用自己的双手摸到的事。

And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.

所以那就是我为什么来到了这里。我选择了来到这里而非回避。我选择了亲眼见证而非转头不看。我选择了对你们发表演讲而非沉默不语。

Please do allow me to deliver a message, one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:

请允许我，传达一条讯息，一条非常私人的讯息。这是我写作的时候一直记在心里的东西。我还从来没有将它写到纸上或者贴在墙上，但我将它刻入了我头脑的深处，它差不多是这样的：

“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”

“在一面高大、坚固的墙和一只撞向墙的鸡蛋之间，我将永远，站在鸡蛋的一边。”

Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will do it. But if there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?

是的，无论墙有多么地正确，鸡蛋有多么地错误，我会和鸡蛋站在一起。将会有别的什么人去决定什么是对，什么是错；也许时间或者历史会做出判断。但是假如有一个作家，他，不论出于何种原因，书写一些站在墙那一边的作品，那么究竟这些作品还有什么价值呢？

What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.

而以上比喻的意义何在？有些情况下，这些意义只是太简单、太清晰了。炸弹和坦克和飞弹和白磷弹就是那面高墙。而那些鸡蛋就是那些手无寸铁的平民，他们被炮弹粉碎、烧毁、击中。这是这比喻的一层意味。

But this is not all. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “The System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others--coldly, efficiently, systematically.

然而这不是全部。它还有更深的含义。试着这样想：我们每一个人，都或多或少地，是一枚鸡蛋。我们每一个人都是一个独特的、不可替代的灵魂，而这灵魂覆盖着一个脆弱的外壳。这就是我自己的真相，而且这也是你们每一个人的真相。而且我们每一个人，程度或轻或重地，都在面对着一面高大的、坚固的墙。而这面墙有一个名字：它的名字叫做“体制”。这个体制本来应该保护我们，但是有时候它有了生命，而这时它开始杀死我们，并且怂恿我们互相残杀——冷血地、有效地、系统性地残杀。

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I truly believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories--stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

我写作小说只有一个原因，而那就是为了使个体灵魂的尊严彰显，并且闪闪发光世人可见。一个故事的目的是敲响一个警钟，是燃亮灯火不灭，从而令在体制之中的我们的灵魂不至迷陷于体制的巨网，不至于被体制损害。我真的相信小说作者的工作就是通过写作不断地去尝试将个体灵魂的独特性澄清——那些关于生与死的故事，那些关于爱的故事，那些让人们落泪、并且因恐惧而战栗、因大笑而颤抖的故事。这就是我们继续着的原因，一天又一天，用极致的严肃捏造着虚幻的小说。

My father passed away last year at the age of ninety. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school in Kyoto, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the small Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the battlefield. He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.

我的父亲去年以九十高龄去世了。他是名退休的教师，兼一名业余的僧人。当他在京都学校毕业后，他被征选进了军队，派送至了中国。我作为战后的一代，每天清晨早饭之前都会看到他在我家那个小小的佛坛前虔诚地念经、久久地晨诵。有一次我问他为什么要这样做，他告诉我他在为那些战争中死去的人们祈祷。他在为那些战争中死去的人们祈祷，不论己方和敌方。看着他跪在佛坛前的背影，我似乎感觉到一片死亡的阴影在他的上方盘旋。

My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.

我父亲去世了，而他的记忆也随之而去，那些记忆我将永远也不会知道。而那潜伏于他周身的死亡气息则停留在了我的记忆之中。这是我从他那里得到的少数东西之一，并且是其中最重要的一个。

I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, and we are all fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong--and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from our believing in the warmth we gain by joining souls together.

我今天只有一个讯息希望传达给你们。那就是我们都是人类，是超越了国籍种族和信仰的个体，并且我们都是面对着名为体制的坚固墙体的脆弱的鸡蛋。照一切看来，我们没有赢的胜算。墙太高大了，太强大了——而且太冷酷了。如果我们还有一点点胜利的希望，那么它将来自于我们对于自己的和其他人的灵魂当中的那种极致的独特性和不可替代性的信念，来自于对于我们从灵魂的联合所获得的那种温暖的信念。

Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must not allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: we made the System.

请花一点点时间想想这个。我们每一个人都拥有一副脆弱的、但活生生的灵魂。而体制一无所有。我们一定不能任由体制去剥削我们。我们一定不能允许体制有它自己的意志。因为体制并不创造我们：是我们创造了体制。

That is all I have to say to you.      　

这就是我全部想说的。

I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I would like to express my gratitude to the readers in Israel. You are the biggest reason why I am here. And I hope we are sharing something, something very meaningful. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.      　

我非常荣幸能够被授予耶路撒冷文学奖。我非常荣幸我的书被世界上那么多地方的人所阅读。而且我非常想对以色列的读者们表达我的感激。你们是我来到这里的最大动因。而且我希望我们分享了一些东西，一些充满了意义的东西。我非常高兴今天在这里有这个机会与你们对话。

Thank you very much.