文/埃里克·科拉里 译/郑文博 审订/缪肖强

《安妮日记》在美出版历经曲折

文/埃里克·科拉里 译/郑文博 审订/缪肖强

Documents show that publishers were initially wary.

档案记载，出版商最初都谨小慎微。

I t has been over 60 years since The Diary of Anne Frank was first published in the United States. Frequently listed among the most signi fi cant books of the twentieth century, the classic account of the 13-year-old girl who hid from the Nazis with her family in an attic in Amsterdam has long been an international bestseller. Many came to know the story in grade school, or through the adaptations for stage and screen. Few realize how dif fi cult it was for the story to be published, and how even more dif fi cult it was to get the book adapted for the stage. Several collections across the Harry Ransom Center help to tell this story.

《安妮日记》在美国首次出版至今已有60余载。这部作品是一个13岁女孩的经典记述，当年她和家人为躲避纳粹迫害而躲藏于阿姆斯特丹的一间阁楼。该书屡次入选20世纪最重要书籍，一直全球畅销。许多人读小学时就知道了安妮的故事，或者看过改编的舞台剧和影视剧。没有多少人知晓当初出版有多艰难，更别说将书改编成舞台剧了。存放于哈里·兰塞姆研究中心的一些收藏品有助于揭开这段历史。

[2] 1945年，安妮的父亲奥托·弗兰克从奥斯威辛集中营获救后，发现自己是家中唯一的幸存者。他从梅普·吉斯那里拿到了他女儿的日记，正是这位世交帮助弗兰克一家藏身，并在他们被捕后不久从家中找回了这些文稿。1947年，弗兰克亲自整理编辑了这些日记，以“秘密后屋”为名由阿姆斯特丹互通出版社出版发行了荷兰语版。

[2] After his liberation from Auschwitz in 1945, Anne’s father Otto Frank discovered he was the sole survivor ofthe family. He was given his daughter’s diaries by Miep Gies, a family friend who had helped hide the Franks and had recovered the documents from the house shortly after the family’s arrest. Frank edited the diaries himself, and had them published in Dutch under the title Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) by Contact Publishing of Amsterdam in 1947.

[3] In the years after, Frank struggled to find an American publisher. After the manuscript was offered to several publishers, it eventually made its way to Alfred Knopf, Inc. in July of 1950. According to the rejection letter found in the Alfred Knopf, Inc. Records at the Ransom Center, the reviewer found the manuscript to be “childish” and “very dull reading”:

[3]之后几年，弗兰克一直找不到可出版此书的美国出版商。手稿提供给一些出版商后，最终于1950年7月转到阿尔弗雷德·克诺夫出版社。根据兰塞姆研究中心“克诺夫出版社档案”中找到的拒绝信，当时出版社审稿人认为该稿“读来幼稚”且“十分枯燥”：

[4] “Despite the unusual circumstances of the two years it covers (during which time 13-year-old Anne Frank and seven others were hiding out from the Gestapo in Amsterdam), this diary is a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.

“The style, occasionally effusive, never compelling, is not at all distinguished. The perceptions, naturally childish, are never sparked by originality. It is not in any way a literary achievement, and would not add prestige to a publisher’s list.”

[4]“尽管这本日记描述了那两年不同寻常的处境（在此期间，13岁的安妮·弗兰克与其余7人一直在躲避阿姆斯特丹的盖世太保），但记录的都是家庭常有的争吵、琐碎的烦恼和青春期情感，笔调枯燥。……