出版人的話
為何出版這書？
純粹因為我喜歡華欣的版畫。這些版畫表面古怪，內裡殘酷，其人性和實驗性深印我心，這都使華欣的創作獨一無二。華欣為人不張揚，版畫卻鮮明地立於人前。野獸受困異域，吸引我們留意細節，塑造自己的故事。她作風低調，但畫作充滿神彩，以確鑿的明暗昇華喻意。
華欣喜愛閱讀和寫作，即使文字創作的經驗不多，這書的文字也如版畫生動，與畫作既各自獨立，又相輔相成，張力十足。她文字上的句式和風格變化多端，有詩、有散文、有故事，不過讀者大概會先被強烈和豐富的線條、濃淡不一的黑影吸引。她的敍事常偏離一般軌跡，看似沒統一的結構或形式，卻會發現跟版畫出奇呼應。這種怪誕的文字實驗，常帶喻意。
千個晚上遊歷夢境後，華欣現以此書展現她文字上的求索、畫作上的變法，讀者不妨用別的眼光和別的心思欣賞。畫作與文字的喻意未必全可一下把握，但種種或有或無的暗示，卻可讓我們以各自對世情的感應，創造自己的天地。這該就是出版此書的初衷了。
馮美華
The Publisher’s Words
Why publishing this book?
Simply because I like Wah Yan’s prints much. They impress me for their explicit weirdness and implicit cruelty. They touch me for their humanity. They move me for the experimentalism in their
making. All these qualities contribute to a final uniqueness that belongs only to Wah Yan’s way of creation and no others’. As a person, Wah Yan never intends to be loud; but as an artist, she
lets her prints stand out by themselves. The depiction of wild beings trapped in bizarre situations attracts us to scrutinise the details and the nuances to make up our own stories. She is
subdued but her images shine and sublimate in a metaphorical way enclaved in starkness and perhaps darkness.
As for her words, as much as Wah Yan loves reading and writing, writings have never been her major creative efforts. In this book, Wah Yan wants her words to appear just as vivid as her
prints, both independent of each other but also inter-dependent with each other. Their closeness is both complementary and creating tension. Whilst her words are made up of varied syntax and
styles, be they poetry, prose or story, the consistently strong and complicated contours and varied shades of black of her prints do take away readers’ first glance before they allow themselves
to immerse in her writings. The narrative in her words more often than not takes detour from people’s normal way of reading. One cannot really find a consistent structure or form there,
but can awkwardly identify a certain quality that echoes her print works: words that run in a weird and experimental manner. And, one can easily read it in a metaphorical sense.
Having wandered in her dreams for a thousand nights, Wah Yan is now showing us her strenuous way in searching for her words and her assured way in conjuring her images. Let us now read the
book in a different light, with a different mind and a different heart. Not all the metaphors of her images and words can be readily captured by us; they can perhaps lead us to create our own
mindscape resonating with our very own sensibility towards the human conditions around us as hinted or not hinted by Wah Yan. It may well be the true intention of publishing this book after
all.
May Fung
