Interface News Reporter | Lin Ziren
Interface News Editor | Jiang Yan
"Man in the Center of the Earth"
Tong Mozu
Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House 2024-4
For centuries, among the mountains of Sipigahuo, the pastures and vastness of the mountains In the forest, in eagle's nest-like houses and beside the fire pit, there live these black humans who call themselves Nuosu. They call themselves "people from the center of the earth." In Daliang Mountain in the 1930s, three people who had lost their identities met in the mountains. He is Tieha, also a border Han Chinese whose real name is Feng Shihai, who escaped after being trapped in the Yi area for 15 years; she is Zina, a female head who was exiled by her family; she is the "Zimo daughter", who was trapped in the Yi area for 15 years. His name was taken away...
"The Man in the Center of the Earth" is the latest novel by the writer Tong Mo. She uses the legendary "Ghost Mother" image in the Daliang Mountains as the basis, and integrates the great social changes in the 1930s to create a The life conditions in Daliang Mountain a hundred years ago are very imaginatively written. Tongmo has an academic background in anthropology, has long been concerned about non-Chinese speaking groups, and is sensitive to the differences between Han and Yi. In order to make the characters in the novel authentic and believable, she began to read historical research related to Liangshan in 2016, visited the local area, and wrote "The Man in the Center of the Earth" from 2018 to 2021. She wrote in the postscript,
"'Liangshan' in the book is my fiction. It is an experimental place where human existence and plight unfold its destiny, and it is also where language unfolds its destiny. All the characters I created are approaching My own - their souls are not different from mine, they are equally complicated, hesitant, and full of contradictions; just like me, limitations are engraved on almost every character, as are their despair and hope."
《一A Thousand Kinds of Green, Ten Thousand Kinds of Blue"
[India] Written by Anuradha Roy and translated by Tan Xueran
Century Literary Scenery | Shanghai People's Publishing House 2024-3
The slogan of this novel is "An Indian woman's moon and Sixpence'". In terms of character setting, the heroine of "A Thousand Shades of Green, Ten Thousand Shades of Blue" and the hero of "The Moon and Sixpence" do have similar experiences - they are both middle-aged. At that time, he abandoned his family and came to an island to engage in artistic creation. But readers will soon discover that a white man and a woman of color think and act differently when pursuing their artistic dreams. In this book, through the perspective of the heroine Gayatri's son Myshkin, readers will step into her heart bit by bit, restore her life, understand her pursuit and struggle, and learn more about her through Gayatri. The story further understands how patriarchy limits the lives of Indian women.
The close interweaving of reality and fiction, personal and political is an important feature of this novel. The background of the novel is set during World War II. Readers will see how Indian society dealt with a world war that it was forced into while fighting for national independence. Readers will also see that when the country is facing internal and external troubles, the way men and women think is very different depending on the situation: Gayatri’s husband reproaches her for her selfishness, “Our people are fighting for freedom, but you are Thinking only of myself." Gayatri replied, "What good will the freedom of a great country do to me? Tell me! Will it make me free?"
Interestingly, some of the important characters who appear in the book are real people. Historical celebrities, such as the Indian literary giant Rabindranath Tagore, the German-Balinese painter and artist Walter Spies and the American anthropologist Margaret Mead. The intersection of history and imagination adds a lot of interest to this novel.
"Class History: Daily Life of a University Class (2018-2022)"
Huang Xiuzhi Pomegranate Flowers
Chongwen Bureau 2023-12
Huang Xiuzhi is the undergraduate class teacher of the 2018 Chinese Text 1801 class in the School of Liberal Arts of Ludong University. This book is He led 42 classmates in his class to record the study and life of the four years of university (September 2018-June 2022). "Class Chronicle" is the main body of this book. It is written by a main writer every month, recording the main events, reading thoughts, learning and growth experiences of the class every month for four years. This class created the class quarterly magazine "Pomegranate Flower", and "Pomegranate Flower" became the nickname for these 42 students.They come from three ethnic groups: Han, Zhuang and Hui, covering 14 provinces and autonomous regions.
Chen Pingyuan pointed out in the preface of this book that there is currently huge polarization in Chinese universities. The world's attention is often focused on the "proud students" of the "985" and "double first-class" universities, but there is little understanding of the situation of college students from non-prestigious universities. care. "Class History" reveals the learning status and spiritual life of ordinary students in ordinary colleges and universities, and "reads it with great interest." He noticed that in the class quarterly magazine co-founded and run by this class, Huang Xiuzhi continuously recommended extracurricular reading books for four years, guiding students to develop the ability to interdisciplinary reading and research writing, and training the students in this class to be outstanding. The vision, interest and level will make you look at this ordinary class with admiration.
"The World I Saw: The Autobiography of Li Feifei"
[US] Written by Li Feifei Translated by Zhao Can
CITIC Publishing Group 2024-2
"The World I Saw" is the first personal memoir of Li Feifei, the world's top scientist in the field of artificial intelligence. In this book, she tells how she grew from an ordinary immigrant living in poverty to a top scientist in the world, details the development she has witnessed in the field of artificial intelligence, and looks forward to the future of artificial intelligence.
Li Feifei is a rational optimist of artificial intelligence. She believes that artificial intelligence will greatly promote human development, but it needs to be guided to ensure that artificial intelligence technology is "people-oriented." "I think that if we can further broaden the boundaries of what we think about artificial intelligence and clearly state the requirement that artificial intelligence needs to have a positive impact on people and communities, and if our definition of success can include similar formulations, I believe that artificial intelligence can Make the world a better place. To this day, I still firmly believe in this. "
"Tolerance and Stubbornness: The Idiot Sima Guang and the Politics of the Northern Song Dynasty"
by Zhao Dongmei
Experience the City·CITIC Publishing Group 2024-3
Sima Guang. He was a clever kid who decisively smashed a vat to save people; he was a great historian who compiled "Zi Zhi Tong Jian"; he was the "most famous conservative" in Chinese history, standing on the opposite side of Wang Anshi's reform; he was also the "Wenzheng" A famous official of the Northern Song Dynasty with this lofty posthumous title. This book continues historian Zhao Dongmei's previous works "Sima Guang and His Era" and "Changes in the Song Dynasty, 1063-1086", using Sima Guang's life experience as an entry point to show the changes in the political and cultural history of the Northern Song Dynasty. Zhao Dongmei said that her understanding of Sima Guang has changed over the years,
"Sima Guang did not rebel in his later years and abandon tolerance. He was consistent, always pursuing the truth in his heart, and hoping to rebuild the politics of tolerance. But this is Sima Guang, in Zhezong Under the specific historical conditions in the early years, it was helpless and reasonable to 'inevitably' move towards the opposite side of tolerance."
Zhao Dongmei pointed out in the book that although the Song Dynasty achieved the "culmination" of Confucian politics during the imperial period during the Renzong Dynasty, history reveals that. This achievement is unsustainable. The key is that the highest principle in the imperial period is the supremacy of imperial power, and the emperor's cooperation is the basis for the smooth implementation of the system and the continuation of procedural justice. The best choice that scholar-bureaucrats could make was to persuade the emperor to correct his mistakes, but they were unable to truly restrict imperial power. At the same time, the lure of concentrated power attracted not only emperors but also officials. So we see that after Wang Anshi’s reform, the politics of the Song Dynasty took a legalist turn. Ironically, “the two political leaders (Sima Guang and Wang Anshi) trained by the tolerant politics of the Renzong Dynasty joined forces to destroy the tolerant politics in different ways.”
"The Age of the Wolf: Germany and the Germans in the Aftermath of the Third Reich 1945-1955"
[Germany] by Harald Jenner
The Republic | Democracy and Construction Press 2024-1
After the end of World War II, more than half Of the Germans in foreign lands, 9 million had lost their homes due to bombing, 14 million were refugees and deportees, 10 million were liberated forced laborers and prisoners, and millions of prisoners of war were gradually being released and returned.Harald Jenner, the author of this book, found that the first four years after the war were a blank in the narrative of German history. He defined this period as follows:
"In the summer of 1945, the total number of people who remained on the remaining German soil was approximately 75 million people are hardly enough to be called a society. People called this era of "others are evil wolves" a "no man era", a "wolf era" until the 1950s, when everything had already begun to improve. , this self-image that everyone only cares about themselves and their families still persists, and people still stubbornly regard the family as a fortress to hide from others and protect themselves.”
Jena found that Germans who fled war and death generally regarded themselves as. Victims, awareness of the Holocaust and collective silence persisted even after the war ended. But it was also during this period of rebuilding life that people admired beauty, became more open to lifestyles, were more keen to engage in serious conversations, and created more innovative art. "How did these people who were dispersed, forcibly recruited, fled and survived dispersed and then reunited? How did the 'national comrades' gradually become citizens again? This is the history this book is about to tell." Yeah. Na wrote in the preface to the book.
"Primitive Plenty: The Way of Life of the Bushmen"
[English] Written by James Suzman Translated by Zhao Hong
Chinese Translation Publishing House 2024-2
In the book "The Meaning of Work", the British anthropologist James Suzman pointed out that in more than 95% of human history, we have never placed work in a nearly dominant position as we do now. As the history of evolution unfolds, the human species has become busier and busier, and work has become more and more important - not only as a means of making a living, but also as shaping an individual's identity - this obsession with work, It was caused by the cultural and economic changes brought about by the agricultural production model.
But the logic of "working longer is better" has not conquered every corner of the planet. This book is an ethnographic study conducted by Suzman in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. He found that the San people living in the area could achieve a prosperous life by working only 15 hours a week. Suzman has lived with the San people in Namibia and Botswana for 25 years. He has an in-depth understanding of the San people's unique thinking in understanding the relationship between life, time, land, food and society, and details their relationship with Western colonial forces and other The conflict between ethnic minorities, the money economy and the modern state system further reflects on the origins of human civilization, the relationship between history and evolution, the differences and conflicts between hunting and gathering and farming peoples, and the Western world's views on environmental pollution, private property and inequality. . Suzman pointed out that we should re-examine the definition of "modern prosperity", draw ideological resources from "original prosperity", and reconstruct an economic development model in which civilization and nature can develop sustainably and human welfare can be universally respected.
"The Mongol Century: Visual Culture in Yuan Dynasty China (1271-1368)"
[English] Written by Ma Xiaohong and translated by Lai Xingrui
Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore 2024-1
The particularity of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) lies in its creation The Mongols were nomadic people who were committed to creating a vast Eurasian empire that far exceeded the boundaries of the previous Chinese empire. In this book, Shane McCausland, professor of Chinese art history at the Department of Art History and Archaeological History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK, analyzes the visual materials of the time within the larger framework of the Mongol Empire, including calligraphy, painting, sculpture, architecture, blue and white porcelain, etc. , in order to re-evaluate the contribution of the Yuan Dynasty to the history of Chinese material culture.
Ma Xiaohong pointed out that the Mongolian values regarding people and objects influenced the art of this period. For example, the Mongols took pleasure in possessing and showing off exquisite things. This extravagant and luxurious life profoundly shaped the appearance of art in the Yuan Dynasty, and also greatly affected the form of royal and official sponsorship of art. At the same time, the mobility of nomadic peoples makes their objects also show strong cross-cultural characteristics. Specifically, the gold brocade combines the gold favored by the Mongols with the silk produced in China, and the blue and white porcelain combines Persian skills and China has a long history of porcelain manufacturing technology.
