Jack Livings spent time in China as a student and an English teacher in the '90s. The American author recently published 'The Dog,' his first collection of short stories, set in the contradictory landscape that is modern China.
美国人利文斯(Jack Livings) 20世纪90年代曾在中国留学并担任英语教师，他最近出版了一本名为《那只狗》(The Dog)的书，这是他的第一本短篇故事集，其中的故事以错综复杂的现代中国为背景。
The stories touch on everything from a factory owner forced to donate vast sums of money to charity in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to a retired racing dog rescued from becoming dinner to a fictionalized account based on the true story of a group of glassworkers charged after Mao Zedong's death with creating a crystal sarcophagus in just 10 months--a task that normally takes three years.
利文斯的新书《那只狗》这本故事集内容丰富，既有2008年四川地震后被迫向慈善机构大量捐款的工厂主的故事，也讲述了一只退役的赛狗如何获救避免成为盘中餐的故事，还有根据真实故事创作的关于玻璃厂工人的小说，这些工人在毛泽东死后仅用10个月的时间就制造出了一口水晶棺，而这项任务通常需要耗费三年时间。

The author, who works in the licensing division at Time Inc. in New York, talks about the challenges of writing about China from afar, precision of language and finding the human element in a story. Edited excerpts:
利文斯目前在Time Inc.纽约办公室的专利许可部门工作。他谈到了写这本书时所面临的挑战，例如从遥远的地方描写中国，语言的精准度以及在故事中发掘人的元素。以下为采访节录：
Where did you draw your inspiration for the characters in your stories?
你从哪里获得灵感来写故事中的这些人物？
'The Dog' [the story from which the book takes its name] is based on a story one of my English students told about this horrible experience she had where they were going to take a racing dog out to the country and barbecue it and she stepped in and said no. I didn't start writing that till I had been back for at least five years, but that story just stuck with me.
《那只狗》（也是这本书的书名）来自于我的一名英语学生给我讲的可怕经历。有些人想把一只退役的赛狗带到乡下做成烤肉，这名学生挺身而出制止了这件事。我回国至少五年之后才开始写这个故事，但这件事一直在我脑海中挥之不去。
Several came from ideas based on news stories I read. A couple came from a weird mix of my own sick brain and things I was reading at the time. Very few actually contained any characters based on people I met.
还有一些角色的灵感来源于我读到的新闻报道。另外一些是我自己脑海里的想法和当时阅读的东西结合的产物。很少有故事是根据我在现实中遇见的人而创作的。
Why did you want to write fiction about China?
为什么会想写关于中国的小说？
I'm a fiction writer. That's how I look at the world. I admire what writers like Evan Osnos and Peter Hessler [who have written nonfiction books about China] do. But if I were going to write nonfiction about China, I would have had to be there for at least 10 years.
我本来就是写小说的，这是我看待世界的方式。我很钦佩像欧逸文(Evan Osnos)和彼得・海斯勒(Peter Hessler)这样的（撰写过有关中国的非小说类作品的）作家。但如果我自己也要写一部非小说类的作品，那我至少得在中国住上10年才写得出来。
For a fiction writer, distance is a good thing, although it can lead to horrible mistakes if you're not careful.
对于小说家来说，距离是个好东西，但如果在创作中不小心，距离也会导致作品漏洞百出。
How much research did you do to ensure you didn't make mistakes? Particularly with the story about the crystal sarcophagus?
为了不出错你做了多少研究？尤其是对水晶棺那篇故事？
The more I worked on it, the more it became like a Hollywood film 'based on a true story.' I started with some oral histories from three glassworkers who were involved in the project that were in places contradictory. They were all speaking in that super-red hero-of-the-revolution language and were very proud of the work they had done.
Jennie Yabroff利文斯在写这个故事时，我越写越觉得它成了一部“根据真实事件改编”的好莱坞电影。一开始，我从当时参与制作水晶棺的工人那里了解了一些口头历史，但他们的讲述存在前后矛盾的地方。这些工人说话的语气都是“又红又专”，对自己所做的工作特别自豪。
I read about the embalming process Mao went through. I read old patents and applications from the '30s. I worked on it for about a year and half, and about eight months in, when I thought I had it down, the Shanghai government released some top-secret information about Shanghai factories' work on the coffin, which no one had ever referenced before. When that turned up, I just tried to make it all work together while keeping the essential center of the story factual. All the research contradicted itself at every turn.
我阅读了一些对毛泽东遗体做防腐处理的资料，还阅读了上世纪三十年代的专利及申请材料。研究进行了大约一年半的时间，大约到了第八个月的时候，我想可以开始动手写了，这时上海市政府公布了制作水晶棺的上海工厂的一些绝密信息，以前从来没有人提到过这些信息。在相关信息公布后，我要做的就是把这些材料组织起来，同时确保故事的中心内容符合真实情况。在每个阶段的研究工作都会出现前后矛盾的问题。
Did writing a fictional account of a real event like this give you a sort of creative license?
像这样通过小说的方式来描述一个真实的事件，你能否获得创作自由？
I was concerned with the first few stories I wrote that I would get facts wrong and all the China hands would come after me. The story about the sarcophagus was researched very heavily--to a point. I couldn't figure out how they built this coffin in 10 months. I was studying chemistry and physics, and I came within an inch of calling up the Corning glass company to ask them to get a curator or someone who probably could've told me in five minutes how they did it. But ultimately I didn't. You can do too much research when you're writing fiction. You need to retain the ability to go off in a wild direction.
当我开始写前几个故事的时候我担心会弄错事实，害怕到时候会遭到全中国的指责。从某种角度来说，我对水晶棺的故事进行了大量的研究。我理解不了他们如何能在10个月之内完工。我研究了化学和物理，甚至差点给康宁(Corning)玻璃公司打电话，让他们找个人，用5分钟的时间告诉我他们是怎么做的。但最后我没有打。在写小说的时候你可能会做太多的研究。你需要留出自由想象的空间。
Most of the stories are written from a Chinese perspective. Was that difficult?
大部分的故事都是从中国人的角度写的，这是否有一定难度？
The essential humanity of human beings translates pretty well. But I was sitting there writing with an idiom dictionary and two Chinese dictionaries. I would write a sentence and then spend two hours researching whether that character really would've said that. For example, I couldn't have them say 'ohmigod' because a Chinese person just wouldn't say that.
人类最根本的人性是互通的。但我写作的时候旁边一定会摆着一部成语字典和两部中文字典。有时候写出一个句子后我会花上两个小时来研究那个人物会不会真的说出那样的话。例如，我不能让故事中的人物说“哦我的上帝啊”，因为中国人不会这么说。
Were you worried about making mistakes?
你是否担心犯错误？
I could always completely get it wrong. I gave a reading in D.C. last week and had a person in the front row, a mainland Chinese person, who gave me 10 minutes of criticism. But the risk is part of what kept it interesting.
很多时候我可能会完全弄错。上周我在华盛顿举行了一次阅读会，有一位来自中国大陆的人坐在前排，之后这个人批评了我10分钟。但风险也是让这件事情有意思的一个方面。
Some of your stories deal with sensitive issues, like Uighur-Han relations. Why did you choose to focus on such subjects?
你写的一些故事里带有敏感性话题，比如维吾尔族和汉族的关系。你为什么要着重描写此类主题？
I wrote that story at least six years ago and it's the only story I wrote out of a kind of politically motivated anger. The difference between writing a position paper, or an editorial or piece of fiction is that I hope this story makes to some degree clear that institutionalized violence destroys everything, not just the people who are victims. It also destroys the people who are committing the acts of violence. The denigration goes all the way around. As opposed to saying, look at what the [police are] doing, aren't they horrible, I hope there was at least a subtle nod that this situation is bad for everyone.
我写那个故事的时候至少是六年前了，这是我唯一一篇取材于因政治引发的愤怒的作品。无论是写一份意见书、一篇社论还是小说，区别就在于我希望这个故事能在一定程度上表明，制度化的暴力将引发全方位大面积的破坏，摧毁的不仅仅是受害者。它还摧毁了那些干出暴力事件的人。各方互相诋毁。我不想说，看那些警察都做了些什么，他们就不残暴吗，我更希望人们能够稍微认同我的观点，那就是这种情况对谁都不是好事。
Will your book be translated into Chinese?
你的书会翻译成中文吗？
I would love to see it translated, but I'm not sure. I hope there's something that would be moving to a Chinese reader but am curious whether it's a little too simple on the surface. It wouldn't be surprising for someone living in Beijing to read about forced donations, but I hope the human element would translate.
如果能翻译成中文当然最好，但我不确定。我希望书中的一些内容能够被中国读者所接收，但我也很好奇对于这些读者来说，这本书表面看来是不是太肤浅。那些居住在北京的读者读到强制捐款事件时一定觉得这没什么好奇怪的，但我希望文字之下的人性因素能得到共鸣。
What's up next?
你的下一部作品是什么？
I'm currently working on a novel set in New York in the late '70s. I thought it would be nice to not have to fact check everything since I'm writing about the U.S., but it turns out that's just the way I write. I use research as a way to build the world.
我在写一部小说，发生在70年代末的纽约。我曾经认为，因为是在写美国，就不用去核查所有的事实了，那该多好啊，但事实证明，这就是我写作的方式。我把研究调查作为构建世界的一种方式。