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李翊云（Yiyun Li），1972年生于北京，是一位以英语写作、在国际文坛享有盛誉的华裔作家。她的创作生涯堪称跨文化、跨语言与跨学科交织的独特现象。从北京大学的本科学习，到赴美攻读免疫学博士学位，再到毅然转向文学创作，李翊云以其深邃、节制而富有洞察力的英语叙事，迅速成为当代英语文学中不可或缺的声音。这次访谈主要围绕李翊云对小说创作的理解展开，重点涉及人物的来源、写作中的耐心与注意力、长期创作过程，以及生命经验如何渗入文学作品。
美籍华人作家李翊云
1. 写作是“发现”，而非“创造”
李翊云明确表示，她并不认为作家是在“凭空创造人物”。在她看来，人物早已存在，作家的工作是发现他们。她特别提到自己深受威廉·特雷弗（William Trevor）、**梅维斯·加兰（Mavis Gallant）和伊丽莎白·鲍恩（Elizabeth Bowen）**的影响，这些作家善于捕捉那些容易被忽视的普通人。
人物可能来源于：
现实生活中的短暂一瞥，
一个瞬间的画面，
或脑海中突然出现、却令人难以忘怀的声音。
2. 人物属于所有人，作家只是更“留意”的人
李翊云认为，人物并非只拜访作家，而是平等地造访所有人。区别在于，作家更善于捕捉这些稍纵即逝的心理瞬间。这需要冷静、专注，以及与日常思绪保持一定距离。写作并不是灵感不断涌现，而是及时留住那些很快消失的东西。
3. 笔记、记录与极低的“命中率”
她长期保持记录的习惯，拥有成千上万条笔记，但真正发展成故事的不到1%。决定一条笔记是否值得写下去的关键因素是时间：如果一个念头在六个月后仍然存在、仍然令人困惑，它才可能成为故事的起点。她形容自己的写作往往源于“困惑”，而非明确的构思。
4. 耐心是写作者的核心能力
李翊云强调，写作不仅仅是句子技巧的问题，更重要的是耐心。真正有价值的内容通常藏在最初印象之下，需要一层一层向下挖掘。写作者必须学会忍受停滞、失败和“糟糕的一天”，并继续跟随那个尚不清晰的念头。
5. 生命、失去与写作
这本短篇小说集横跨14年完成，其间她经历了父亲、儿子、导师威廉·特雷弗以及一位挚友的去世。她认为，生活必然会“渗入”作品之中，写作是生命的一个容器。但她同时拒绝将自己的小说简单视为自传，强调人物依然拥有独立的生命。
6. 小说是时间中的自我切片
回顾这些作品，李翊云可以清楚看到自己在不同人生阶段的状态。小说成为当时自我的切片记录，而这种变化并不令人不安，反而带来一种安慰：它证明了成长与变化是真实存在的。
English Summary and Synthesis
This conversation centers on Yiyun Li’s understanding of fiction writing as an act of discovery rather than invention, her long-term creative process, and the ways grief, time, and attention shape literary work.
1. Writing as “Finding” Rather Than Creating
Yiyun Li repeatedly emphasizes that she does not believe characters are created from nothing. Instead, writers find characters who already exist, either in the world or in the mind. She aligns herself with writers such as William Trevor, Mavis Gallant, and Elizabeth Bowen, whose work she admires for its attentiveness to ordinary lives that might otherwise go unnoticed. In her view, these writers “save” characters from oblivion rather than fabricate them.
Characters may originate from:
fleeting encounters in real life,
a passing image,
or an internal voice that briefly surfaces and leaves a residue of curiosity.
2. Imagination, Attention, and the “Democracy” of Characters
Li suggests that characters visit everyone, not only writers. What distinguishes writers is their trained attention—their ability to notice fleeting mental moments before they vanish. She describes this as requiring calm, patience, and distance from mental noise. Writing, therefore, is less about constant inspiration and more about noticing and holding onto what passes quickly.
3. Notes, Notebooks, and the Low “Hit Rate”
Li keeps extensive notes—thousands of them—across notebooks and digital devices. However, fewer than 1% of these notes ever become stories. What determines whether a note develops into fiction is time: if an idea remains alive or puzzling after six months, it may warrant further exploration. She describes her writing impulse as arising from bafflement rather than clarity.
4. Patience as a Core Writerly Skill
Beyond sentence-making, Li identifies patience as one of the most important skills a writer must develop. She explains that meaningful stories emerge only after pushing past multiple superficial layers of an idea. The first impression is rarely interesting; depth is reached by sustained curiosity and endurance, including learning to live through unproductive days.
5. Life, Loss, and the Work
The short story collection discussed in the interview was written over 14 years, during which Li experienced profound personal losses, including the deaths of her father, her son, her mentor William Trevor, and a close friend. She describes writing as a “placeholder for life”, a space where lived experience inevitably settles. At the same time, she resists labeling her fiction as autobiographical, maintaining a distinction between her own life and the lives of her characters.
6. Fiction as Temporal Self-Portrait
Li reflects on how stories serve as snapshots of who the writer was at the time of writing. Looking back, she can see herself at different emotional and intellectual stages across the collection. This retrospective awareness brings a sense of comfort rather than discomfort, affirming that change over time is both natural and visible in creative work.
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发表于 2025-12-22 13:21:05
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