每日英語跟讀 Ep.K249: Even Nobel Winners Face Supply-Chain Problems
When Abdulrazak Gurnah released his 10th book, “Afterlives,” last year, his editor was sure it would become his first major bestseller. For more than three decades, he had drawn stellar reviews but never gained a large readership.
坦尚尼亞作家古納去年出版第十本書「死後」（暫譯）時，編輯確信這將成為他第一本重要暢銷書。30多年來，古納的書叫好不叫座。
“I have felt there’s a much bigger audience for him out there,” said Alexandra Pringle, executive publisher of Bloomsbury, who has worked with Gurnah for more than 20 years. “I thought, ‘This is it, this is going to be his moment.’ ”
與古納合作20多年的英國布魯姆斯伯里出版社總發行人亞歷珊卓．普林格爾說：「我一直覺得古納的讀者應該要多得多才對。我當時想，『這就是了，他要出名了』。」
“Afterlives,” which explores the brutality of Germany’s colonial rule in East Africa, came out in Britain in September 2020 and was hailed as a masterpiece. But it failed to reach a wide readership and wasn’t even published in the United States. Pringle wondered if Gurnah’s moment might never come.
探討德國在東非殘酷殖民統治的「死後」2020年9月在英國上市，被譽為經典之作，卻未能暢銷，甚至沒在美國出版。普林格爾當時猜想，古納是否永遠都不會成名。
A year later, it finally did. Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, landing him in the company of Gabriel García Márquez, Albert Camus and William Faulkner, and he became the first Black laureate since Toni Morrison in 1993. The news sent booksellers across the world scrambling to stock his novels and set off a frenzy to secure translation and reprint rights. His agent, Peter Straus, said foreign rights to his books have sold in “30 territories and rising.”
一年之後，古納終於紅了。他榮獲諾貝爾文學獎，與馬奎斯、卡繆和福克納等人並列世界知名作家，而且是自1993年美國小說家童妮．摩里森以來，首位獲得諾貝爾文學獎的非裔作家。這個消息讓全球各地書商連忙進他的小說，並引發爭搶翻譯和再版權的熱潮。古納的經紀人史特勞斯說，古納作品的外國版權已賣給「30個地區，而且還在增加」。
After the Nobel announcement, Straus began fielding bids from six American publishers for “Afterlives.” U.S. rights to the novel sold to Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Random House, which plans to release it in August 2022. Riverhead also acquired North American rights to two older Gurnah books, “By the Sea” and “Desertion,” that had gone out of print.
古納摘下諾貝爾獎桂冠後，美國6家出版社向史特勞斯表明有意出版「死後」。這部小說的美國版權賣給「河口」，這是「企鵝藍燈書屋」印在書籍上的出版商名稱，河口打算2022年8月出版。河口還買下古納兩本絕版舊作「海邊」和「遺棄」的北美版權。
Rebecca Saletan, who acquired the books for Riverhead, said in a news release that she was drawn to the “combination of narrative magic and a deeply inhabited and often devastating portrayal of the colonial and postcolonial experience” in Gurnah's work.
為河口取得古納作品版權的麗貝卡．薩萊坦在新聞稿中說，她被古納作品吸引是因為「既有敘事魅力，又深刻且往往令人震撼地描述殖民與後殖民經驗」。
But as offers poured in from international publishing houses, many readers who were eager to sample Gurnah’s work were frustrated. The audience was suddenly there, but copies of his books were not — in several cases, even e-book and audiobook versions aren’t available.
但各國出版社爭相購買古納作品版權之際，許多急著一睹古納作品的讀者不免失望。廣大讀者突然出現，他的書卻印得不夠多，有時甚至連電子書和有聲書版本都沒有。
The reasons for the shortfall are manifold. Because of the low demand for Gurnah’s work over the decades, many of his titles were out of print in the United States and in low stock in Britain.
古納作品難買的原因很多。他的書數十年來乏人問津，許多已在美國絕版，在英國庫存也很少。Source article: https://udn.com/news/story/6904/5870567