特等奖第一名

刘慧（江西师范大学）

An American Writer Born In Tianjin

As time flies, the past occurrence has gone with the clouds and winds. It was in the autumn of 1981 when Tianjin Writers' Association just renewed its work that John Hersey, the former chairman of American Writer's Federation, came to Tianjin. He travelled toChinaat his own expense and visited Tianjin with special purpose of reviewing his childhood memory in his birthplace.

How could Tianjin be Hersey's birthplace? It was because his father—An American missionary—had worked as the Administrative Secretary of YMCA for many years and his mother was teaching English there, at the request of Nankai Middle School. The interpreter in company with him told us that Hersey's mother was the teacher of Zhou Enlai—a world famous figure. And Mr. John had once joked that he had known Zhou Enlai even before he was born. Hersey was born in 1914 in Tianjin and left forAmericaat the age of 11. However, the memory of the city had been lingering in his mind. This was the third visit to his birthplace, the first being in 1939 and the second in 1945.

Hersey had made lots of preparations for this return. His interpreter added that Mr. John had asked someone to translate some works of writers of Tianjin origin during his stay in Beijing and particularly he had spoken highly of Sun Li's " The Marsh with Blooming Lotus Flowers" and Fang Ji's "The Visitor", from which we can have a glimpse of Mr. John's attitude towards Life and Reality.

The next day, I was invited to his room and had a long face-to-face talk with Hersey. He put a mini-tape recorder on the tea table to record our talk together with the interpretation. He was eager to know everything about Tianjin, especially about Tianjin-born writers, as well as the calamity brought to Tianjin by the devastating Tangshan Earthquake. He told me that he had been to Tianjin twice before, but he'd never heard of Tianjin-born writers, nor did he have any idea that Chinese writers not only got paid by writing, but also have regular salary every month. As if he had made a big discovery, he noted down the finding on a notebook with surprise. On seeing that, I took a chance to ask him a question, for I was curious about how he sustained his living merely by writing. He replied that he was not only a writer, but also worked as a reporter and professor. In this way, he, on the one hand, ensured his means of livelihood; on the other hand, he enriched his source of creation and broadened his knowledge on various fields. Most of his novels were distilled from his reportage, and some other works were written on the basis of inspiration gained in teaching.