美国《时代周刊》评出2017年度十佳小说

每到年终，各大媒体和报刊杂志推出的年度书单也是一个非常值得关注的事情。美国《时代周刊》近日公布了2017年度十佳小说榜单，小说出版商抱怨说，2017年作品在政治激烈争执下的媒体环境中得到关注是一个非常困难的一年。但是今年的一些最好的小说中，对种族的评论又与现实相关，比如莫哈辛·哈米德的难民故事《西出》，或者是间接的乔治·桑德斯的《林肯在巴尔多》涉及内战。其他共同的主题移民身份认同，父母身份，寻找身份，对过去的痴迷。但是，榜单有两个因素就是引人注目的写作和新鲜的故事。

　No.10
New People Danzy Senna
　《新人》作者丨塞纳

　　Senna’s latest racial satire focuses on a multiracial couple,Khalil and Maria, in which each half is grappling with complicated feelings about identity. With humor, understanding and a touch of sympathy, Senna’s novel is both knowing and biting.

　　塞纳最新的一部关于种族问题的讽刺小说，聚焦一对混血夫妇，哈利勒和玛丽亚，两人都对身份有着复杂的感受。塞纳的小说幽默、充满理解力和同情心，既洞悉一切又刺痛人心。Senna笔下的世界大胆而又引人入胜，挑战着我们对自己、对他人的定义。

　
No.9
Days Without End Sebastian Barry　　
《无境之日》作者丨塞巴斯蒂安·巴里

　　In this riff on the American frontier genre, narrator Thomas McNulty and his sweetheart John Cole live through aseries of trials: performing as women in a saloon, fighting in the Indian and Civil Wars, escaping random attacks in Postbellum South and avoiding being caught as gay lovers. Their story is both simple and strikingly choreographed.

　　这部美国边境流派作品，讲述了一对同性恋人之间简单而丰富的生活故事。叙事者托马斯·麦克诺恩（Thomas McNulty）和他的爱人约翰·科尔（John Cole）经历了一系列的冒险尝试：在沙龙里扮演女人，在印度和美国内战中作战，逃避南北战争后的纷乱，随时躲避着因为同性恋身份而被抓的危险。他们曲折波澜的人生经历直击心灵，情节动人，值得品读！

No.8
The Ninth Hour 　Alice McDermott
《第九个小时》作者丨艾丽丝·麦克德莫特

　The Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor meet Annie at her lowest point: she’s pregnant, and her husband has just committed suicide. With help from the nuns, Annie and her daughter are spared from destitution—but the intervention has ramifications that echo through generations. McDermott offers up a version of sisterhood that’s both historical and relevant.

　一群修女姐妹们遇到了处于人生最低谷的安妮：她怀孕了，而她的丈夫刚刚自杀了。在修女们的帮助下，安妮和她的女儿得到庇护，但该来的劫难总会来，这种干预却影响了几代人。麦克德莫特呈现了一部既有历史意义又反映社会现实的关于姊妹文化的作品。

No.7
The Changeling Victor LaValle
《换子疑云》作者：维克多·拉瓦列

　The myth of the bad mom gets the horror-story treatment in this novel, which takes place deep in the boroughs of New York City. Apollo Kagwa and his wife Emma Valentine are thrilled to welcome their first child, but soon after his birth, Emma feels a strange distance from her son—is this the boy she birthed, or some sinister imposter? The story cleverly interrogates parenting norms, racial prejudice and technological quandaries.

　　故事发生在纽约市的自治区，一个关于坏妈妈的秘密在这部小说中以恐怖故事的方式进行了处理。阿波罗·卡格瓦和他的妻子艾玛·瓦伦丁十分激动地迎接着他们第一个孩子的到来，但在孩子出生后，艾玛感到她与儿子之间有一种奇怪的距离—这是她产下的男孩，还是一个阴险的冒名顶替者？故事巧妙地质问了当下家庭教育的规范、种族偏见以及技术困境，有一股提醒和拯救的力量。

No.6
ExitWest Mohsin Hamid
《西出》作者｜莫欣·哈米德

　　Hamid tells the story of a couple whose love story begins just as war breaks out in their city, which is unnamed but resembles Lahore. The only path to safety is through a series of enchanted doors that lead them, and a surge of other refugees from around the world, to western cities where they face new threats from the residents who’d prefer these migrants went back to where they came from.

　　哈米德讲述了一对夫妇在家乡爆发战争时的爱情故事，虽然并未指明具体的城市，但非常像巴勒斯坦的拉合尔。

　　走向安全的唯一途径是通过重重困境，引导他们以及急剧增长的来自世界各地的其他难民到达西部城市。然而他们却又面临着新的危机，当地居民希望这些移民回到他们来的地方，这部小说带你读懂当时人们的内心。

No.5
Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders
《林肯在巴尔多》作者｜乔治·桑德斯

　　In his first full novel, Saunders has gained an even wider audience,winning the 2017 Man Booker Prizefor this historical ghost story about Abraham Lincoln.The night after his young son is buried, as the Civil War rages, the President visits the cemetery for a final farewell, only to be observed by a ragtag cast of souls who can’t bring themselves to leave their earthly remains behind.

　　这是桑德斯的第一部完整小说，就赢得了广大观众的喜爱，他凭借这部关于亚伯拉罕·林肯的历史幽灵故事获得2017年“布克奖。” 在林肯的小儿子埋葬后的那天晚上，也是内战爆发时，总统去了墓地作最后的告别，却遇到了一群被丢弃的灵魂….作者想通过这个故事告诉我们，该如何安放内心的灵魂。

　　
No.4
Manhattan Beach Jennifer Egan
《曼哈顿海滩》　作者丨詹妮弗·伊根

　The Pulitzer Prize winner’s new novel, seven years afterA Visit From the Good Squad,marks a move away from the experimental—this is a straight historical novel, set mainly during World War II. The book’s heroine, Anna Kerrigan, is a character perfectly calibrated for Hollywood, with verve, vulnerability, and a tough-as-nails glamour that transitions from her job as the first female diver to work on war ships to her nights in gangster-filled night clubs.

　　普利策奖获得者的新作，这是一部故事主要发生在第二次世界大战期间的直白的历史小说。小说的女主角安娜·克里根（Anna Kerrigan）是一位魅力十足的好莱坞演员，她神秘、脆弱、冷酷无情，但后来她经历了不同的工作，从第一位在战舰上工作的女潜水员到在黑帮聚集的夜总会工作，不同的人生经历，又有哪些不一样的人生感悟？

　No.3
Transit Rachel Cusk
《过境》作者丨蕾切尔·卡斯克

　　Cusk’s second novel in a planned trilogy goes minimal on plot, maximal on observation. The plot structure in the book is the renovation of the narrator’s London flat, and the spirit of transformation is mirrored in her conversations: With her contractors, her friends, her old flame. Through elegant meditations on contemporary life, Cusk’s depiction of her narrator is not so much portrait as a photo negative—mysterious, poetic and in contrast to her world.

　　Cusk计划三部曲的第二部小说，情节细微，观察深刻。本书情节主要围绕叙述者翻新伦敦公寓展开，在她与承包商、朋友，旧情人的谈话中都体现了改变的精神。通过对当代生活的优雅沉思，Cusk对主人公的描述更像是一张照片底片，神秘而充满诗意，与她的世界形成鲜明对比。

No.2
White Tears Hari Kunzru
《白色眼泪》作者｜哈里·昆兹鲁

　　The British novelist skewers American culture in this treatise on whiteness and cultural appropriation. Two young white men breaking into the music industry find success when they record random noises in a New York City park and discover the voice of a man who wasn’t there. They pass the recording off as a rediscovered blues song—only to learn their lie may be accidentally based in reality. The hunt for the truth takes them on an unnerving journey through the past.

　　英国小说家Hari Kunzru在这部关于白人和文化挪用的著作中串联了美国文化。两个刚进入音乐圈的年轻白人在纽约市公园录下随机噪声，凭此获得成功，但他们在录音中发现一个不在那里的男人的声音。他们声称这是1920年代的一位蓝调音乐家丢失的录音—结果却发现他们的谎言可能恰好是现实存在的，为了寻找真相，他们踏上了一段回到过去的不安旅程。

　No.1
Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward
《唱吧，未埋葬者，唱吧》作者丨杰斯敏·沃德

　　Ward’s third book set in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, based on her hometown of DeLisle, Miss., conjures the same raw emotion of her previous works, like the Hurricane Katrina novelSalvage the Bones.But this time, a sense of magical realism deepens the ghostly sense of the past reaching out to touch—or even strangle—the present. Ward’s novel is a true triple threat, expert in prose, human observation and social commentary.

　　沃德的第三本书，故事背景设置在虚构小镇布瓦苏韦（Bois Sauvage），小说是以她的故乡德莱斯（DeLisle）为基础创作的。这本书延续了她之前作品的原始情感，不过这一次，魔幻现实主义风格更加鲜明，加深了过去触摸甚至扼杀现在的恐怖感觉。沃德的小说是真正的”三面手”，无论在散文抒情、人类观察和社会评论方面都很擅长，也因此两度荣获国际大奖，相信会给你带来不一样惊喜。

来源：时代周刊刘薇频道凤凰阅读
（以下书单均为2017年出版，暂未有中译本，译名出自团队翻译，如有问题请指正。）

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