《耶稣的童年》中的后现代难民书写

The Childhood of Jesus: A Postmodern Refugee Novel

《耶稣的童年》是库切移居澳大利亚后出版的第四部小说。作为一部难民问题小说,该作品的语言、故事情节和人物塑造十分简单,然而,在貌似普通的现实主义叙事中,库切设置了一系列极具后现代意味的情节,而这些情节显然是为了探讨一个更加深刻和严肃的主题。本文结合利奥塔的后现代理论,通过聚焦小说的一个地名(避难地"诺维拉")、一个核心情节(托孤认母)和一个神秘物件(小主人公的魔法披肩)中的元小说特征,深入揭示小说在平淡的外表下努力影射的难民遭遇,尤其是儿童难民在避难过程中鲜为人知的心灵体验。《耶稣的童年》以特有的后现代手法呈现了一个儿童难民在避难迁徙过程中的双重创伤,体现了库切对于全球化时代难民问题的深切思考。

J. M. Coetzee＇s fourth Australian novel The Childhood of Jesus（2013） has all signs of a realistic refugee novel with its use of simple language, lucid plotline and stock characters. But it is another of Coetzee＇s postmodern projects with its striking contingent of metafictional devices. This essay uses Jean-Fran？ois Lyotard＇s theory of the postmodern and attends to three metafictional details in the novel——the naming of Novilla, the boy protagonist＇s handover to an alleged mother, and his ＂magical cloak of invisibility＂——to delve into Coetzee＇s allusive representation of the experience of displacement of two refugees, Simon and particularly David. It is contended that The Childhood of Jesus, through a postmodern representation of the double traumas of a child refugee who has lost his home and loved ones in war, constitutes a testament to Coetzee＇s penetrating engagement with the global refugee problem in the 21st century.