周浩暉與《死亡通知單》,中國犯罪小說走向世界

YANGZHOU, China — Zhou Haohui, the latest author to catch the wave of Chinese crime fiction crashing on international shores, had an unsatisfying job teaching engineering at a university outside of Beijing in 2007 when he began publishing — online — the novels that would earn him a cultlike following in China.

中國揚州——周浩暉是最新一位趕上中國犯罪小說進入國際市場浪潮的作家。2007年，他對在北京附近一所大學教工程學的工作感到不滿意，於是開始在網上寫小說。後來這些小說讓他在中國受到了狂熱追捧。

These books — a trilogy about a police hunt for a vengeful killer — went into print two years later, ultimately selling more than 1.2 million copies. They inspired a serial on the streaming site owned by Tencent, the social media giant, that has, to date, been watched a staggering 2.4 billion times, according to his agent, China Educational Publications Import & Export Corporation. A feature film went into production in April.

它們構成了一組三部曲，講述的是警方追查一名復仇殺手的故事。兩年後，這些書出版，最終賣出120多萬本。據周浩暉的代理公司中國教育圖書進出口有限公司稱，根據它們改編的一部連續劇，在社交媒體巨頭騰訊旗下的流媒體網站上播放量高達24億次。一部長片已於四月開拍。

Now the first book of Mr. Zhou’s trilogy, “Death Notice,” will be released on June 5 in the United States, and in Britain next week. The American publisher, Doubleday, hopes it will vault him into the ranks of other contemporary Chinese novelists — like Qiu Xiaolong, He Jiahong and A Yi — who have reached a global audience with stories from China’s criminal underbelly.

現在，周浩暉三部曲中的第一部《死亡通知單》將於6月5日在美國發布，下週在英國發布。美國雙日(Doubleday)出版社希望這本書能讓周浩暉躋身裘小龍、何家弘和阿乙等中國當代小說家的行列，這些作家憑藉中國社會底層的犯罪故事在全球贏得了讀者。

Crime, Mr. Zhou says, is a universal theme, which is why detective stories or police thrillers (even from an authoritarian political system like China’s) can more easily transcend cultural divides than, say, historical fiction.

周浩暉說，犯罪是一個普遍的主題，所以偵探故事或警匪小說（即便出自中國這樣的威權主義政治體制）能夠比歷史小說等類型更容易超越文化差異。

“When you are talking about crime — criminal cases, the police in large cities, this suspenseful feeling of mystery — I feel that readers all over the world like this kind of thing,” he said in an interview here in his hometown, Yangzhou, a historical imperial city of 2 million people on the Yangtze River a couple hours upstream from Shanghai.

“討論罪犯和警察的這種都市都有（的事），這種懸疑性神祕感這些東西，我覺得這是全世界的讀者都很喜歡的一個類型，”他在家鄉揚州接受採訪時說。地處長江沿岸的揚州是一座古都，人口200萬，從上海逆流而上幾個小時便可抵達。

He noted that Martin Scorsese’s 2006 film “The Departed,” which won four Oscars, including Best Picture, was a remake of the highly regarded 2002 Hong Kong film, “Infernal Affairs,” about a police mole infiltrating the mob. The drama simply shifted to South Boston.

他指出，馬丁·西科塞斯(Martin Scorsese)2006年的作品《無間道風雲》(The Departed)是對2002年備受好評的香港電影《無間道》(Infernal Affairs)的翻拍。《無間道》講述的是警方一名臥底潛入犯罪團伙的故事。《無間道風雲》只是把背景換成了南波士頓，該片獲得了包括最佳影片在內的四項奧斯卡獎。

Mr. Zhou, who is 40, seems unfazed by his celebrity here. He is as likely as not to pass unnoticed, even here in his hometown, where his novels are prominently on display in bookstores. He is cerebral and soft-spoken, and his interests are broad.

現年40歲的周浩暉對自己在中國的名氣顯得鎮定自若。在家鄉，他的小說被擺放在書店的顯眼位置，即便如此，他本人並不引人矚目。他理智，語氣溫和，興趣廣泛。

In addition to a dozen crime novels, he has written two books on food, including one on the cuisine of his native region, known as Huaiyang and considered one of the “four great traditions” of Chinese cooking (along with Cantonese, Sichuan and Shandong, from the northeast).

除了十多本犯罪小說外，他還寫了兩本有關美食的書，其中一本是關於他家鄉的淮揚菜。淮揚菜被認爲是中國“四大菜系”之一（另外三大菜系分別是粵菜、川菜和來自中國東北部的魯菜）。

His mild manner seems at odds with the lurid violence of crime novels. In “Death Notice,” the killer of two police academy cadets in a gruesome bombing resurfaces after 18 years, this time orchestrating the murder of a revered police sergeant whose failure to solve the original case haunted his career.

他舉止溫和，這似乎和犯罪小說中令人毛骨悚然的暴力不相符。在《死亡通知單》中，一個兇手在一場可怕的爆炸案中殺害了兩名警校學員。18年後，兇手再次現身。這一次，他策劃殺害一位受人尊敬的警官。未能偵破當初那起案件一事，始終困擾着這名警官。

Then, as now, the killer fashions himself as an avenger, bringing justice to those whose crimes have gone unpunished. The killer calls himself Eumenides after the third of the Oresteia ancient Greek tragedies by Aeschylus and warns each of his victims in notes drawn with exquisite Chinese calligraphy, luring the police into a diabolical game. The new killing spree revives a special police task force that had been shelved for reasons that, to explain fully here, would amount to a spoiler.

現在，兇手把自己塑造成一個復仇者，將那些罪行未受懲罰的人繩之以法。兇手以埃斯庫羅斯(Aeschylus)的古希臘悲劇三部曲《奧瑞斯提亞》(Oresteia)中的第三部“Eumenides”（復仇女神）作爲自己的名字，並用精美的毛筆字寫下通知，警告每一個受害者，將警方引入一場惡毒的遊戲。再次出現的一連串殺戮促使警方重啓一個專案組。此前，該專案組曾遭擱置，至於擱置的原因，若是在這裏詳細解釋，就相當於劇透了。

Of course, censorship shapes crime writing here, which to some can make the genre seem relatively wan. A Yi, who was a police officer in Jiangxi Province before writing thrillers, said in an interview that the crime novel might have exhausted its potential in China. “Crime novels still do very well,” he said, “but for the writers, creating these stories is getting harder and harder.”

當然，審查制度影響着這裏的犯罪小說寫作。對一些人來說，審查制度可能會讓犯罪小說看上去比較蒼白無力。阿乙在寫驚悚小說之前是江西省的一名警察。他在接受採訪時說，犯罪小說在中國的潛力可能已經耗盡了。“犯罪小說還是很受歡迎，”他說，“但是，就對創作者來說，他的創作難度越來越大。”

Mr. Zhou acknowledged that the censors had posed problems, forcing him to make changes in his books, but he said that novels tend to get more leeway than movies or content online, which the government polices with greater zeal because that is where more Chinese are spending their time. The investigation at the heart of “Death Notice” does hinge on questions of police corruption and the privileges the wealthy in China enjoy — all of which are experiences Chinese readers can relate to.

周浩暉承認，審查機構是個問題，它們逼迫他修改書中的內容。但他說，小說的餘地往往比電影或網絡內容大，政府對後者的監管力度更大，因爲在它們上面花時間的人更多。《死亡通知單》的核心調查的確涉及警察腐敗和中國富人享有的特權，這些經歷都能與中國讀者產生共鳴。

“When you write crime novels you know you shouldn’t write anything too negative,” Mr. Zhou said, “but you have no way of knowing where the line is.” The solution, he said, was to have a good editor with a better sense of what can pass muster.

“我們寫犯罪小說不太好決定你說什麼要特別負面，”周浩暉說，“你沒有辦法把握這個。”解決的辦法，他說，就是找一個對什麼內容能通過審查有更好判斷力的好編輯。

The producers of the film version of “Death Notice” dealt with potential political sensitivity by shifting the action to Hong Kong, which is considered by Communist propaganda to be thoroughly dissolute after decades of colonial rule.

《死亡通知單》電影版的製片人把故事發生的地點改成了香港，以避免潛在的政治敏感性問題。共產黨的宣傳部門認爲，香港在經歷了數十年的殖民統治後，已經徹底墮落了。

For commercial rather than political reasons, Mr. Zhou’s literary agent here also made changes in the English-language version of the book, translated by Zac Haluza. The action now takes place in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, not Yangzhou or nearby Nanjing, the cities Mr. Zhou said he had in the back of his mind when crafting the story. The assumption was that Chengdu, which is best known for pandas and spicy food, would be recognizable to foreign readers and give the drama a more visceral feel, Rob Bloom, Mr. Zhou’s editor at Doubleday, said in an email.

周浩暉的美國文學代理人出於商業原因，而非政治原因，也對該書的英文版做了些改動，英文版由扎克·哈盧扎(Zac Haluza)翻譯。英文版的故事發生在四川省會成都，而不是揚州或鄰近的南京。周浩暉表示，他在構思這個故事時，頭腦中一直想的是這兩座城市。周浩暉在雙日出版社的編輯羅布·布魯姆(Rob Bloom)在接受電子郵件採訪時表示，這是出於這樣的考慮：以熊貓和辛辣食物聞名的成都爲外國讀者所熟知，更可能會讓讀者產生身臨其境的感覺。

When asked about the change, Mr. Zhou laughed and said he, too, had wondered why they did that.

被問及這個改動時，周浩暉大笑起來，表示他也很想知道他們爲什麼要這麼改。

Doubleday has options for the second and third parts of the trilogy, called in Chinese “Fate” and “Farewell Song,” but has not yet committed to them — perhaps because Mr. Zhou’s first foray into English, a novel called “Valley of Terror,” published by Amazon Crossing last year, did not take off.

雙日出版社有權選擇是否接着引進這個三部曲的第二部和第三部——它們的中文書名分別是《宿命》和《離別曲》——但此時還沒有敲定，也許是因爲周浩暉的第一本英譯小說、去年由Amazon Crossing出版的《恐怖谷》並不暢銷。

Yangzhou, where Mr. Zhou grew up, is renowned for its literary history, especially a 9th century poet, Du Mu. One poem lamenting the whereabouts of a friend is so well known that Mr. Zhou’s colleagues recited it in unison during an excursion to Slender West Lake, a World Heritage Site in the city. (Mao Zedong’s handwritten transcription of Du Mu’s poem is carved into a stone monument beside the lake.)

周浩暉長大的城市揚州以悠久的文學傳統聞名，尤其是九世紀的詩人杜牧。杜牧有一首感嘆朋友下落的詩廣爲流傳，周浩暉的同事們在遊覽該市的世界遺產名勝瘦西湖時能齊聲朗誦這首詩（毛澤東手寫的杜牧詩句被刻在湖邊的一座石碑上）。

Mr. Zhou remembers playing in the park as a child — when there was no entrance fee — but literary inspiration came to him much later.

周浩暉還記得自己小時候來這個公園玩過——當時不收門票——但很久之後，他纔有了文學靈感。

“In the Chinese education system, there was no one to guide you to consider ‘what do you want to do?’” he said. “They just told you, study, study, study and get into a good university.”

“因爲中國的教育制度很激烈，我們從小接受教育的時候呢，沒有人去引導我們去思考‘你想要幹什麼?’”他說，“就是告訴你要學學學，然後考上一所好的大學。”

He did, attending Tsinghua University in Beijing — one of the country’s most prestigious — and pursuing a degree in environmental engineering. Soon, though, he realized he did not really like engineering. He wrote as a hobby, posting stories on the message board of the university on the edge of Beijing where he taught for a decade.

他的確考上了好大學——中國最負盛名的大學之一，北京的清華大學——並且獲得了環境工程學位。但他很快意識到自己其實並不喜歡工程學。後來，他在位於北京邊緣的一所大學教了十年書，把寫作當成業餘愛好，在那所大學的網絡論壇上發表故事。

He began to write in earnest in 2003 during the SARS crisis, when millions of people were effectively quarantined by the viral outbreak; hundreds died. “We had nowhere to go hang out and have fun,” he said, “so I would spend the whole day shut in my room.”

在2003年非典期間，他開始認真寫作。當時，由於病毒爆發，數百萬人被隔離，數百人死亡。“我們沒有地方去娛樂，”他說，“然後我就整天關在屋子裏。”

With the success of the “Death Notice” trilogy, he was able to quit his job as a professor in 2012 and return to Yangzhou. He has given up writing exclusively and now devotes his creative efforts to producing his own films online, through the production company, Frog Brothers, which he founded. He has also begun studying film direction, having been disappointed that the popular serial version of his trilogy turned into a dark comedy.

由於《死亡通知單》三部曲的成功，他於2012年辭去教授工作，回到揚州。他放棄了全職寫作，現在通過自己創立的製片公司“青蛙兄弟”創作自己的網絡電影。由於對自己廣受歡迎的三部曲被拍成黑色喜劇感到失望，他也開始研究電影導演。

Producing and directing allows him to control more aspects of the stories he wants to tell, he said. His first online film project was a psychological thriller, roughly translated as “Shuttered Room,” about two strangers mysteriously confined in a sealed apartment together.

他表示，製作和導演讓他能夠在更多方面控制自己想要講述的故事。他的第一部網絡電影是一部心理驚悚片，名爲《禁錮之屋》，講述兩個陌生人被神祕地關在一個封閉公寓裏的故事。

Mr. Zhou’s taste for the cinematic is clear. The germ of the idea for the “Death Notice” trilogy came from a 2006 music video by Jay Chou, the popular singer and actor from Taiwan, and the narrative is lean and fast paced, with little by way of description or excessive ruminations.

周浩暉對電影的喜愛顯而易見。《死亡通知單》三部曲的靈感來源於臺灣流行歌手兼演員周杰倫2006年的一個音樂錄像。這個故事情節緊湊、節奏很快，幾乎沒有任何與主題無關的描寫或過多的思考。

He seems part of a generation for whom the boundaries between the written and the visual, the printed word and the image on screen, have blurred, allowing him to glide dexterously from one medium to the next, one genre to the next. The format, Mr. Zhou said, was not so important. “I just ask myself, ‘What is the best way to tell the story.’”

對他這一代人來說，語言與視覺、印刷文字和銀幕上的圖像之間的界限已經模糊，使他能夠靈活地從一種媒介轉向另一種媒介，一種體裁轉向另一種體裁。周浩暉表示，形式沒那麼重要。“我只是問自己，‘講故事的最佳方式是什麼？’”