諾貝爾迷夢：遠景與九五文化《諾貝爾文學獎全集》翻譯出版研究

Abstract

一九七○年代台灣出版業蓬勃發展，帶動一波套書風潮，題材從理財保健到史地傳記，包羅萬象。一九八○年代初期，九五、名家和遠景三家出版社不約而同看上諾貝爾文學獎，計畫製作套書收錄諾貝爾文學獎作品，因而掀起一場搶奪預約市場的報紙廣告大戰，最後名家中途打退堂鼓，九五和遠景各推出一套《諾貝爾文學獎全集》。諾貝爾全集的製作難度絕非一般套書所能比擬，首先套書必須在短時間內分批出齊整套作品，八○年代的台灣譯者數量足以在時限內應付如此龐大的工作量嗎？再者，諾貝爾獎是歐洲中心的獎項，希臘、冰島等得主的文學作品原文從何取得？台灣又有多少譯者和編輯具備歐洲語系能力？從市場角度考量，當時台灣讀者接觸的文學仍以英美和日本為主，出版社如何推銷歐洲文學居多的諾貝爾文學獎？ 本文從原文來源、譯者來源、新譯與非新譯作品比例和譯文品質四種面向探討遠景與九五兩套全集。研究發現，遠景有一套挑選收錄作品的標準，原文委託書店進口或托人代購；九五則直接翻譯日文版諾貝爾，照單全收。遠景和九五全集收錄的作品並非全數新譯，兩家出版社都沿用港中台三地的現成譯本，以壓縮製作時間，降低成本。遠景的新譯作品比例較九五高，整體譯文品質也更好。兩套書雖然銷售不如預期，對台灣的貢獻仍不容抹滅。The 1970s witnessed extensive developments in Taiwan’s publishing industry which brought about the popularization of serial books and the inclusion of history, geography, and biographies in addition to the typical finances and health. Beginning of the 1980s, three publishing houses, Mingjia, Jiuwu, and Vista, separately decided to publish a collection of works that had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Shortly after, Mingjia abandoned the project, yet Jiuwu and Vista both published anthologies of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Production work for these collections was undeniably more intense than for other books; this study investigated various aspects of these undertakings, including whether there were enough translators in Taiwan to accomplish this monumental task within the strict timeframe, where the original works in languages such as Greek and Icelandic came from, how many translators in Taiwan were competent with European languages, and lastly, how publishers promoted literature from Nobel Prize winners from countries unfamiliar to Taiwanese readers at the time. This study further examined the Vista and Jiuwu anthologies with regards to the origin of the works, the translators, the proportion of new translations and existing translations, and translation quality. Results found Vista had selection standards where it consigned bookstores or people to purchase and import the original work, whereas Jiuwu directly translated the Japanese translations. Not all of the works in both of the collections were new translations; the two publishers incorporated existing translations from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to reduce production time and costs. Vista’s collection had a higher ratio of new translations and a higher overall quality of translation. Despite sales for the two series being lower than anticipated, they both contributed a great deal to Taiwan’s translation history.