Yesterday, the writer Jennifer Egan was announced as the 2011 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her book, A Visit From The Goon Squad.

       昨日，2011年普利策文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)小說類的殊榮由詹妮弗·伊根(Jennifer Egan)所創(chuàng)作的小說《流氓來訪》(A Visit From The Goon Squad )獲得。

The interview project and website, The Days of Yore - a site that aims to inspire younger artists by interviewing more established creative icons about the days before they had money or success - published an extensive interview with Egan. In it, she digs deep into her early years of struggle and confusion and finding her way in New York City.

       一個(gè)以訪談為主要內(nèi)容的項(xiàng)目The Days of Yore在其網(wǎng)站上發(fā)布了一篇關(guān)于伊根(Egan)的詳細(xì)訪談。這個(gè)網(wǎng)站致力于通過采訪一些出色的標(biāo)志性人物的成名前生活來鼓勵(lì)較年輕的藝術(shù)家。在這篇訪談里，她深入地講述了自己早年在紐約奮斗、迷失以及自我尋找的過程。

An excerpt of the interview is below. Click on over to the site for past interviews with the likes of Sam Lipsyte, Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, David Shields, and other award-winning writers and artists.

       下面是訪談的一些摘錄。點(diǎn)擊可以進(jìn)入網(wǎng)站瀏覽過去對(duì)薩姆·利普西特(Sam Lipsyte)、加里·施特恩加特(Gary Shteyngart)、喬治·桑德斯(George Saunders)、大衛(wèi)·希爾茲(David Shields)等獲獎(jiǎng)作家及藝術(shù)家的專訪。

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

       你小時(shí)候希望自己長大成為一個(gè)什么樣的人？

When I was little, I wanted to be a doctor. I was really interested in gore. My grandfather was an orthopedic surgeon and he had a lot of books in his library that I would just pore over. A lot of them had really horrible pictures of deformities.

       當(dāng)我還小的時(shí)候，我想當(dāng)一個(gè)醫(yī)生。當(dāng)時(shí)我對(duì)流出來的血真的很感興趣。我的爺爺是一個(gè)整形外科醫(yī)師，而且在他的書房里有許多書我都經(jīng)常會(huì)看，其中很多有十分可怕或畸形的圖片在里面。

It attracted you?

       這些很吸引你么？

It did, kind of. I was interested in corporeal strangeness. I wish I could tell you it was about making people well, but I think it was more about wanting to cut them open!

       算是吧。我過去很喜歡肉體的陌生感。我希望能告訴你這種感覺是想去使人們變得更好，但實(shí)際上更多的是我想去把那些肉切開。

But you lost that interest?

       但是你丟掉了這個(gè)興趣？

I did. I would just add that I was deeply interested in biology and physiology. I would read about that on my own time. I felt like it wasn't covered enough at school-- I went to this girls' school and I was like, "I want to hear more about the human body!!"

       是的。我想補(bǔ)充的是過去我對(duì)生物學(xué)和生理學(xué)很感興趣。在私人時(shí)間我喜歡閱讀相關(guān)的東西。我覺得在學(xué)校學(xué)的東西還不夠，我那會(huì)兒讀的是女校，而且當(dāng)時(shí)我想：我想聽到更多關(guān)于人體的東西！

This was probably nine to thirteen, fourteen. When I became a teenager I got very squeamish, and that interest totally disappeared. That squeamishness-- and I'm sure you could read lots of interpretations into that-- was almost a fear of the body. Just a fear of seeing what was in the body. I remember being really afraid of seeing blood. I'm not really like that anymore, but I don't feel neutral about it. I look away if I'm getting a shot.

       這些事情大概發(fā)生在我九到十三、十四歲的時(shí)候。當(dāng)我進(jìn)入青少年時(shí)期，我變得非常神經(jīng)質(zhì)，而且這些興趣完全消失了。那種神經(jīng)質(zhì)表現(xiàn)在我對(duì)身體的懼怕，我相信你可以添加更多解釋。我記得當(dāng)時(shí)我變得十分害怕見血。雖然我現(xiàn)在不像那樣了，但是我也沒有什么特別的感受。如果我看見血我會(huì)轉(zhuǎn)頭看別的地方。

No more doctor. Then what?

       不再想做醫(yī)生了。然后呢？

At that point I became really interested in anthropology and I really wanted to be an archeologist. I thought that was a for-real goal, actually. I applied to Penn. I got into the anthropology department, but I specifically wanted archeology. It was the seventies and a lot of exciting things were happening, discoveries in archeology. It was a moment when that felt more present in the culture than it is now.

       那時(shí)候我開始對(duì)人類學(xué)十分感興趣，而且我希望成為一個(gè)考古學(xué)家。我想，這是一個(gè)真正的目標(biāo)。后來我申請(qǐng)了賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)并進(jìn)入了人類學(xué)系，但是我很明確自己想學(xué)考古學(xué)。當(dāng)時(shí)是七十年代，各種各樣令人興奮的事情、考古學(xué)的發(fā)現(xiàn)正在發(fā)生。比起現(xiàn)在，那是一個(gè)感覺這些事情在文化中更能有所體現(xiàn)的時(shí)期。

I took a year off between high school and college and it was kind of funny-- I had this idea that I could hire myself out as a person to go on archeological digs and dig, without any training! I actually wrote to a number of archeology departments and offered up my services. I think none of them answered me except for one, who said, "You know, our graduate students actually pay us to go on digs. So, obviously, this is not appropriate." It was a nice note, but basically saying: "This is never going to happen."

       我在高中和大學(xué)間暫停了一年的時(shí)間，很有意思，當(dāng)時(shí)我想我可以雇我自己當(dāng)一名考古人員去進(jìn)行考古探險(xiǎn)和挖掘，并不需要任何訓(xùn)練！實(shí)際上我那會(huì)兒寫了信給許多考古學(xué)的相關(guān)部門表達(dá)了我的愿望。我想，除了有一個(gè)地方說：“你知道，我們畢業(yè)的學(xué)生實(shí)際上都是付給我們錢去繼續(xù)挖掘的。所以很顯然，你這樣是不行的?！?，其他沒有一個(gè)部門曾經(jīng)回復(fù)我。那個(gè)唯一的答復(fù)是一張很好的通知單，但基本上表達(dá)的是：這件事永遠(yuǎn)不可能發(fā)生。

Then I actually paid to go on a little dig, which was in Southern Illinois. They were digging up Indian remains. It was essentially the kind of thing the professor was describing to me only it was open to the public. So I went, and what I discovered was that what I had imagined archeology to be bore little resemblance to the actual experience.

       然后我真的付錢去進(jìn)行了一些挖掘工作，當(dāng)時(shí)是在伊利諾伊南部。他們正在挖掘印第安人的遺跡。這基本上就是那種只有公諸于眾了之后教授才會(huì)給你講的東西。所以我去了，而且我發(fā)現(xiàn)我之前想象的考古學(xué)與實(shí)際的經(jīng)驗(yàn)基本沒有什么相似之處。

How so?

       為什么呢？

In my imagination, it was kind of digging up big chunky urns with a shovel! [Laughs.] But what one so often neglects to account for from the outside of any job is the tedium-- and I include writing in that. It was a square meter of earth, it was 99 degrees, it was the end of summer in Illinois. We used a scalpel. We couldn't unearth-- that was the thing that really bugged me. You had to lower the earth until the object was sitting on top of it! You couldn't dig it out! It's called a dig, but you couldn't dig!

       在我的想象里，考古學(xué)就是用鏟子挖出又大又粗的罐子（笑）。但是當(dāng)人們提到任何工作的表象時(shí)總是忽略它的單調(diào)乏味，我考慮寫寫這方面的東西。那是一平方公尺大小的地方，99華氏度，伊利諾伊的夏末。我們用的是一把解剖刀，真正困擾我的是我們沒辦法把它挖出來，你必須要等挖掘目標(biāo)在最上面露出來才能去降低周圍的土地。你挖不出來！這是一個(gè)挖掘點(diǎn)，但你又不能挖！

By October I knew that I probably didn't want to be an archeologist.

       在十月的時(shí)候，我知道了我可能并不想成為一個(gè)考古學(xué)家。

So I had to save up money since I really wanted to travel-- now that I wasn't going to Greece or Italy to dig! It took me a long time to save up the money. When I finally did have enough money, I got a backpack and went to Europe and bought a Eurail pass. I was eighteen.

       所以我不得不存錢，因?yàn)槲艺娴南肴ヂ糜?，這次我不是想去希臘或者意大利去挖東西。我花了很長的時(shí)間存錢，當(dāng)我終于存了足夠的錢，我買了個(gè)雙肩背包，去了歐洲，買了一張歐洲鐵路通票，當(dāng)時(shí)我十八歲。

I would recommend that to anybody. Although it would be different now because no one is really ever cut off from anybody anymore. To do that then was really to be severed from your ties. To make a phone call I had to wait in line at a phone place and it was not easy.

       我會(huì)向任何人推薦這種經(jīng)歷。盡管現(xiàn)在不會(huì)出現(xiàn)真正與其他任何人完全隔離的情況，那時(shí)候這么做確實(shí)是把自己與你的所有關(guān)系都斷絕了，我打一個(gè)電話必須在一個(gè)電話亭排隊(duì)，這真的不容易。

Were you alone?

       你是自己一個(gè)人？

Yes. It was actually really hard. Of course you met people along the way, it was a freewheeling summer, lots of European kids-- it's normal for European kids to do that. It was kind of incredible to be so isolated, and in a way to be thrown into this very old and different world. But what I found was that it was actually very tough. I started to kind of flip out to some degree. In retrospect, I think I was having panic attacks, but I had never heard that term. I think now people would know, but then I thought: "Drug flashbacks, insanity, Go Ask Alice!" It was the summer of 1981.

       是的。那時(shí)候真的很痛苦。當(dāng)然，你沿路會(huì)遇到不同的人，那真是一個(gè)隨心所欲的夏天，所以有許多歐洲的孩子，在歐洲孩子這么做是很正常的。像那樣自我隔離挺令我難以置信的，就像是被扔進(jìn)了一個(gè)非常古老又完全不同的世界。但是我發(fā)現(xiàn)這樣其實(shí)很困難，我開始有些失控了?；貞浧饋?，我想我得了恐慌癥，但是我那時(shí)候從來沒聽過這個(gè)詞。現(xiàn)在人們知道了，但我那會(huì)兒想：“藥物性閃回、精神錯(cuò)亂，去問愛麗絲?。ù颂幩坪跤械涔?，求解釋）”那是1981年的夏天。

When would these panic attacks come on?

       那些恐慌什么時(shí)候會(huì)出現(xiàn)？

It was usually when I was alone. The nature of a panic attack is that you're just terrified and you don't know why. Anyway, that became very tough. They would strike and I wouldn't know when they would. And I was desperate to be with people, and that's not a great way to be traveling.

       經(jīng)常是我單獨(dú)一人的時(shí)候?？只虐l(fā)作的時(shí)候我就是感覺很害怕，不知道為什么?？傊?，這讓我變得很艱難。這些癥狀會(huì)侵襲我而且我不知道什么時(shí)候它們會(huì)出現(xiàn)，我十分渴望人群，這對(duì)于正在旅游的人來說并不是一個(gè)好事兒。

But anyway, in the course of all of that it became very clear to me-- and I'm not quite sure how-- that writing was the thing that I needed to do. How that revelation wormed itself through the chaos of my mind at that time, I am not quite sure. I was writing a lot in a journal-- which was very helpful to me later because I've used a lot of that material. Maybe if I read through the journal I would understand how I came to realize that. Anyway, I know that when I came back, I was positive that I wanted to be a writer. If I was going to be sane-- which I wasn't sure of!

       但總之，這所有的一切對(duì)我來說變得很明確，我不確定怎到底么去做，但寫東西是我需要去做的。我不太清楚這個(gè)啟示當(dāng)時(shí)是怎么樣穿過我心中的嘈雜慢慢衍生的。那時(shí)候我寫很多日記，那些日記后來對(duì)我很有幫助，因?yàn)槲矣玫搅死锩娴脑S多東西作為材料。也許如果我讀一遍日記我會(huì)明白我是怎么認(rèn)識(shí)到的。總之，我知道當(dāng)我回來的時(shí)候，我肯定自己想當(dāng)為一個(gè)作家。如果我要變回正常，這點(diǎn)我倒不是很確定。

Well, luckily, you'd probably heard about all the crazy writers in history...

       那么，幸好你可能已經(jīng)對(duì)那些歷史上瘋狂的作家有所耳聞....

I literally thought: "Can I write in an insane asylum?" [Laughs.]

       我當(dāng)時(shí)真的想：“我能在一所精神病院里寫作么？”（笑）

It is very uncomfortable to be alone, and I think that is why we, as a globe, have fetishized connection the way that we have. But I think that we are losing a lot by losing the experience of solitude. Many people have said that, but I feel that very viscerally. That was not the only time that I traveled that way. I went to China later, the former Soviet Union. I remember my birthday in China, I couldn't make a phone call. I couldn't speak to a single person I knew on my birthday.

       獨(dú)自一個(gè)人是很不舒服的，我想這就是為什么我們作為一個(gè)整體是如此迷戀我們所處的那種關(guān)系。但是我想我們?cè)谑オ?dú)處經(jīng)驗(yàn)的同時(shí)也會(huì)失去很多。許多人都這么說過，但我發(fā)自那內(nèi)心的有這種感覺。那樣的旅行并不是僅有一次，我后來又去了中國和前蘇聯(lián)。我記得在中國到我生日的時(shí)候，我連個(gè)電話都打不了，我在生日當(dāng)天連跟任何一個(gè)人說話的機(jī)會(huì)都沒有

I will always remember those times because they were so extreme. I was lucky to have had those experiences. They made me know myself in certain ways that I might not have otherwise.

       我會(huì)永遠(yuǎn)記得那些時(shí)光，因?yàn)樗鼈兲珮O致了。我很幸運(yùn)自己能擁有那些經(jīng)驗(yàn)，它們使我通過一些獨(dú)有的途徑認(rèn)識(shí)我自己，這些認(rèn)識(shí)可能是在其他途徑中無法得到的。

And so, then you knew you wanted to be a writer.

       所以后來你知道自己想成為一個(gè)作家。

From that point on, I can say that I did not waver. That is not to say that I had any great hopes of success. I really didn't. I always feel, and at this point I kind of hope that I always will feel, that I have no idea how things will work out. Because I think that is actually the fact. The minute you start thinking you have it made, you're in big trouble. Everything is in flux, always.

       從那時(shí)候起，我可以說我沒有動(dòng)搖過了。并不是說我有任何對(duì)成功的巨大憧憬，我真的沒有。我總是覺得，這一刻我似乎希望并且我希望永遠(yuǎn)會(huì)覺得自己不知道怎么去做。因?yàn)槲蚁脒@才是真正的事實(shí)。當(dāng)你開始思考你有成功的把握樂的同時(shí)，你就有大麻煩了。所有事情都永遠(yuǎn)是在變的。

If you've been around as long as I have, watching the literary scene, then you know that who's in and who's out changes by the year. It's really a very fluid situation that requires that the person who is having the good luck now isn't having it a year or two from now.

       如果你像我一樣，當(dāng)觀察文壇是，你會(huì)知道誰流行誰過時(shí)了總是在變化。情況真的是十分不穩(wěn)定的，那個(gè)正在走好運(yùn)的人，不會(huì)一直走好運(yùn)。