不好意思啊，大过年问这个问题。原因是wsj介绍了一本书，作者是一个36岁中国mm,讲的是中国的political killings.
访问原文如下，摘自wall street journal:
Executioner Songs
-A debut novelist on her new book about political killings in China
Yiyun Li moved from Beijing to Iowa when she was 23 to pursue a Ph.D. in immunology. Her boyfriend remained in China, and she enrolled in a community writing course to pass the time and improve her English. Her stories soon appeared in the Paris Review and the New Yorker, and her 2005 short-story collection "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" won the Guardian First Book Award. Her debut novel, "The Vagrants," which comes out on Tuesday, concerns a cast of outsiders in a newly industrialized Chinese city. The characters range from a disabled girl to a beautiful news announcer working for the Communist party. None of Muddy River's citizens are spared profound pain and suffering, which makes for a harrowing read. Ms. Li, now 36 and reunited with her college boyfriend (now husband), spoke with us from her house in Oakland, Calif.
WSJ: Why did you choose to set the book in 1979?
Ms. Li: It was a historical year for China. It was 2? years after the end of the Cultural Revolution and the year of the Democracy Wall movement in Beijing. All of a sudden there was the idea of opening the country to the rest of the world. And, selfishly, I was 6 and 7 in 1979 and I had a lot of memories of that change.
The novel is bookended by political executions. Did you witness counterrevolutionaries being executed?
Ms. Li:They were not executed in front of me but before the execution, they would parade people around from one neighborhood to the next. They would have a gathering and they would have a short ceremony and the police would announce their crimes. I went a couple times when I was 5 and 6.
Did these ceremonies trouble you?
Ms. Li:I don't think when you're young you're troubled by those things. You're just curious. You're in daycare and then all of a sudden the routine is interrupted and you take a field trip. It was a ritual and all the neighborhood people were there. Our gathering site was very near the building where my family lived. They'd set up a makeshift stage and parade the people up there. I remembered all the policemen had starched white uniforms.
You were made to spend a year in the Chinese re-education army before college. Tell me about that.
Ms. Li:I was in it from 18 to 19. I went to Peking University, which was really active in the Tiananmen protests, so the university ordered something they called "the changing of blood." That meant that for four years, the incoming class was sent to the army. After four years, the blood of the whole college was cleaned.
Were you against going?
Ms. Li:I was very much against it. I was very bad. I talked about the people who were killed in Tiananmen Square a lot. A lot of my fellow students did not believe that happened and I could not shut up about those things. But I also had a very memorable time. I learned more than any other year about human behavior.
For example?
Ms. Li:We had this squad leader who was also just a student among us. Once she was appointed squad leader she had all this power over other people and she was only 17. . . . She knew I could write and every week every squad had to submit a propaganda-ish article, and she made me write it every time. I said, "That's not fair," and she said, "If you don't write it, I'm going to assign you to clean the pig sty." I wish I'd acted rebellious and cleaned the pig sty, but I did not want to clean the pigsty, so I would write for her. I didn't pursue my idealism because I did not want to clean the pigsty. We all compromised.
Why did you decide to set "The Vagrants" in a fictional town?
Ms. Li:Muddy River is modeled after my husband's own town which is in the Northeast, on the border of China and North Korea, 16 or 17 hours from Beijing. I did not want to write about Beijing because it was the center of the action. I wanted to go into a provincial town and see how people changed or did not change.
Have any of your friends or family back in China told you they found the book offensive?
Not yet. It will happen, I am sure.
访问原文如下，摘自wall street journal:
Executioner Songs
-A debut novelist on her new book about political killings in China
Yiyun Li moved from Beijing to Iowa when she was 23 to pursue a Ph.D. in immunology. Her boyfriend remained in China, and she enrolled in a community writing course to pass the time and improve her English. Her stories soon appeared in the Paris Review and the New Yorker, and her 2005 short-story collection "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" won the Guardian First Book Award. Her debut novel, "The Vagrants," which comes out on Tuesday, concerns a cast of outsiders in a newly industrialized Chinese city. The characters range from a disabled girl to a beautiful news announcer working for the Communist party. None of Muddy River's citizens are spared profound pain and suffering, which makes for a harrowing read. Ms. Li, now 36 and reunited with her college boyfriend (now husband), spoke with us from her house in Oakland, Calif.
WSJ: Why did you choose to set the book in 1979?
Ms. Li: It was a historical year for China. It was 2? years after the end of the Cultural Revolution and the year of the Democracy Wall movement in Beijing. All of a sudden there was the idea of opening the country to the rest of the world. And, selfishly, I was 6 and 7 in 1979 and I had a lot of memories of that change.
The novel is bookended by political executions. Did you witness counterrevolutionaries being executed?
Ms. Li:They were not executed in front of me but before the execution, they would parade people around from one neighborhood to the next. They would have a gathering and they would have a short ceremony and the police would announce their crimes. I went a couple times when I was 5 and 6.
Did these ceremonies trouble you?
Ms. Li:I don't think when you're young you're troubled by those things. You're just curious. You're in daycare and then all of a sudden the routine is interrupted and you take a field trip. It was a ritual and all the neighborhood people were there. Our gathering site was very near the building where my family lived. They'd set up a makeshift stage and parade the people up there. I remembered all the policemen had starched white uniforms.
You were made to spend a year in the Chinese re-education army before college. Tell me about that.
Ms. Li:I was in it from 18 to 19. I went to Peking University, which was really active in the Tiananmen protests, so the university ordered something they called "the changing of blood." That meant that for four years, the incoming class was sent to the army. After four years, the blood of the whole college was cleaned.
Were you against going?
Ms. Li:I was very much against it. I was very bad. I talked about the people who were killed in Tiananmen Square a lot. A lot of my fellow students did not believe that happened and I could not shut up about those things. But I also had a very memorable time. I learned more than any other year about human behavior.
For example?
Ms. Li:We had this squad leader who was also just a student among us. Once she was appointed squad leader she had all this power over other people and she was only 17. . . . She knew I could write and every week every squad had to submit a propaganda-ish article, and she made me write it every time. I said, "That's not fair," and she said, "If you don't write it, I'm going to assign you to clean the pig sty." I wish I'd acted rebellious and cleaned the pig sty, but I did not want to clean the pigsty, so I would write for her. I didn't pursue my idealism because I did not want to clean the pigsty. We all compromised.
Why did you decide to set "The Vagrants" in a fictional town?
Ms. Li:Muddy River is modeled after my husband's own town which is in the Northeast, on the border of China and North Korea, 16 or 17 hours from Beijing. I did not want to write about Beijing because it was the center of the action. I wanted to go into a provincial town and see how people changed or did not change.
Have any of your friends or family back in China told you they found the book offensive?
Not yet. It will happen, I am sure.
![[em96]](https://emojis.huaren.us/static/emojis/v1/yoci/em96.gif)
![[em89]](https://emojis.huaren.us/static/emojis/v1/yoci/em89.gif)
。。。。。。
。。。。。。
![[em58]](https://emojis.huaren.us/static/emojis/v1/yoci/em58.gif)
