A Selection of Works from the Past Fifty Years of World Literature

Author: Editorial Department of World Literature
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: When I wrote this title, the face of my primary school teacher in my mind's eye appeared before me—because this was exactly his way of speaking, his style, his conclusion. Now, as I caress this Selected Writings from the Past Fifty Years of World Literature, Volume of Prose, which has been painstakingly compiled by many new and old translators and editors, I unexpectedly felt a strong resonance with his way of speaking. Yes. Rich and splendid, it should be prose. Because "the greatest sound is silent, the greatest form is formless." Prose is not bound by any form; it is purely the free flow of thought. Thus, it holds the great possibility of achieving richness and splendor. It can be a painting—D.H. Lawrence facing Mount Etna, with his majestic brush, depicting a giant painting hanging from the sky, the footprints he left behind in The Sea and Sardinia. It can be a poem—Kazuo Ishiguro's nostalgic recollections of his youth, the touch of melancholy and tenderness he left behind in Impressions of Izu. It can be a letter—Tagore's distant dispatches while traveling across Europe and America in the 1920s and 1930s, the hope he conveyed for the future of his homeland, India, in Letters from Abroad. It can be a reflection on life—a speech by Nadine Gordimer upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, the sincere heart she laid bare in Writing and Being. It can be a true story—a music master, Yehudi Menuhin, recalling his childhood friendship with the writer Vera Caspary, the literary improvisation he wrote with the fingers of a conductor in Historic Houses.