Microfictions

在世界毀滅前，我用最後一口氣讀了一部小說。

　　灰姑娘的姊姊動縮腳手術來爭奪王子的愛；
　　狼人鼓足勇氣去看牙醫；
　　試圖與冥界溝通的靈媒收到錄音訊息。
　　不管你想聽蚊子如何描述失眠症，
　　或是公主吻了青蛙之後發生了什麼事，
　　讓我用140個字的時間為你朗讀一篇微小說。

　　認識／微小說
　　微小說，顧名思義就是很短很短的小說，短到只有一句話，卻同樣寫進了人物、劇情、結局，寫出了科幻、愛情、驚悚懸疑；它從一個點、一個畫面、一聲讚嘆的瞬間捕捉住了小說，用最少的文字創造出最大的閱讀樂趣。

　　關於／微小說
　　微小說是存在已久的文體，不過因為創作難度高，知名作者不多，很多創作者也只是玩票性質地偶一為之。安娜．瑪麗亞．舒阿是世界上少數專注於微小說創作的作家，出版了許多微小說文集，這本《微小說》從她的作品中精選出189篇微小說，成為她在國際文壇的代表作。全書依主題分為七個章節，內容包羅萬象，從令人窒息的愛情到吊人胃口的懸疑，甚至帶有魔幻寫實的風格，她以極其凝鍊的文字展現了尖銳的幽默、謎樣的邏輯，以及如何駕馭想像力，其中有些故事短到只有一個句子，讀來卻依舊鏗鏘有力。你可以迅速翻閱這本書，不過更建議你細細品味每一篇故事，咀嚼每一個精心推敲而來的字眼，體會隱藏在字與字之間的趣味。

　　Cinderella’s sisters surgically modify their feet to win the prince’s love. A werewolf gathers up enough courage to visit a dentist. A medium trying to reach the afterworld gets a recorded message. A fox and a badger compete to out-fool each other. Whether writing of insomnia from a mosquito’s point of view or showing us what happens after the princess kisses the frog, Ana Maria Shua, in these fleet and incandescent stories, is nothing if not pithy—except, of course, wildly entertaining. Some as short as a sentence, these microfictions have been selected and translated from four different books. Flashes of insight, cracks of wit, twists of logic, and quirks of language: these are fictions in the distinguished Argentinean tradition of Borges and Cortazar and Denevi, as powerful as they are brief.
 
　　One of Argentina’s most prolific and distinguished writers, and acclaimed worldwide, Shua displays in these microfictions the epitome of her humor, riddling logic, and mastery over our imagination. Now, for the first time in English, the fox transforms itself into a fable, and “the reader is invited to find the tail.”

　　★本書中譯版《微小說》由三采出版。

作者簡介

安娜．瑪麗亞．舒阿　Ana Maria Shua

　　1951年出生於布宜諾斯艾利斯，是阿根廷最多產、最著名的作家之一，也是世界上少數專注於微小說創作的作家，出版著作超過40本，被翻譯成多國語言，包括詩、兒童故事、小說、猶太民俗故事及微小說文集。

　　Ana Maria Shua has published more than forty books in many genres, including poetry, children’s fiction, novels, and books on Jewish folklore, and her work has been translated into many languages. She lives in Buenos Aires.

　　Steven J. Stewart is an associate professor in the English Department at Brigham Young University–Idaho in Rexburg. He was awarded a 2005 Literature Fellowship for Translation by the National Endowment for the Arts. His translation of Devoured by the Moon: Selected Poems of Rafael Perez Estrada was a finalist for the PEN USA Translation Award.