The Silent Queen
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Summary
Years later, Marie became a singer, an actress, the mother of two children, and a writer. After she became famous, people began saying "she's just like her father, who died so young," and this remark made her realize that her father had always been a region of deliberate silence in her life. She decides to get to know afresh the man she once called "Papa": she visits her half-brother, tries to find the son left by her father's mistress, and recalls the wounds on her mother, the bloodstained sheets, and the family's silence.
The book unfolds in a structure alternating memory and present, its language close to poetry; it is both a record of searching for a father and a self-identification in which a person asks, "Whose child am I, and by what right am I who I am?" The Chinese edition is translated by Yuan Xiaoyi, with a preface by Bi Feiyu.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- 喜欢法国当代文学与自传体小说的读者
- 正在处理与父母、与原生家庭关系的成年读者
- 关注记忆写作、非虚构与虚构边界问题的写作者
- 希望读到精致译文与可靠导读的文学阅读者
Not a good fit for
- 期待紧凑情节和强戏剧冲突的通俗小说读者
- 只想读轻松治愈系散文、不喜沉思文字的读者
- 对丧亲、车祸等题材较为敏感、当下不便阅读的人
Reading tips
- 先读毕飞宇的序言，再进入正文，能更好理解本书“既是自传又非自传”的写法。
- 把它当作一次缓慢的自我辨认来读，不必追求情节推进，留意反复出现的意象与沉默。
- 读到父亲车祸与家庭缄默的部分，可停下来想想自己家中那些“大家都知道却不说”的事。
- 读完正文后再看译后记，可对照译者对文本结构与语言的处理思路。
About the publisher
Yilin Press focuses mainly on translated foreign literature. Its current catalogue of 318 titles covers common categories such as mystery and detective fiction, foreign literature, world classics, biography, and social novels. Representative books include The Complete Sherlock Holmes 2: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, To the Lighthouse, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and Lives of the Artists: Michelangelo, often presented in bilingual or English-language editions that serve both original-text reading and language learning. Its author resources include foreign writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Romain Rolland, as well as translators including Li Jiazhen, Gao Fen, and Ma Ye. The catalogue also includes Chinese works such as Li Jieren's Ripples Across Stagnant Water. The press shows a concentrated publishing strength in foreign classics and bilingual readers; given limited public information, this overview is based only on catalogue data.
Contents
- New Literary Reading Library
FAQ
这本书是虚构小说还是作者的真实回忆？
《沉默女王》获得过哪些文学奖？
中文版有几个版本，该选哪一个？
书名“沉默女王”指什么？
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