The Sky Dwellers 天行者

《天行者》 以中国20世纪90年代贫乏的乡村教育为背景，讲述了一群在贫苦生活中无私为乡村教育事业做出贡献的民办教师为求转正而发生的辛酸故事，也反映出被人们遗忘已久的乡村民办教师曾有过的艰难历程。 本书围绕着西河乡界岭小学三代民办教师转正的故事，以及张英才、余校长、孙四海、万站长、蓝飞和夏雪等人的爱情故事展起来。这些大故事中穿插着小故事，每个小故事又可以作为下个故事展的源头，相互交叉汇合，使得小说的叙事精彩纷呈，紧缩而富有张力。   The Sky Dwellers describes the lives and struggles of primary school teachers in Jieling, a tiny, fictional community nestled high in remote mountains in China. These teachers are not state teachers, with regular salaries and pensions to look forward to. They are, instead, community teachers (or “minban teachers” – a term which literally translates as “people-supported” teachers) whose wages are paid by the local community and who might not have received much beyond primary school teaching themselves. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s, most children in China were taught by minban teachers. From the early 1990s onwards, the role was gradually phased out, and some minban teachers were lucky enough to become state teachers.   A minban teacher’s life was one of poverty. State subsidies provided only part of their wages and local cadres were supposed to make up the rest from often very limited village funds. But often the cadres did not pay on time, or at all. Inevitably, this would result in tensions – a theme explored in this novel.   Each of the teachers in the book responds differently to the pressures of life as a minban teacher. But the novel is not just about the teachers’ lives, it also deals with the impact they had on the children and the community they served. Set in the 1990s, a time of great social and cultural change in China, The Sky Dwellers is a compelling, personal and moving account of a part of China’s recent past which is often overlooked. 
【推荐语】
2009年第八届茅盾文学奖获奖作品； 《天行者》是献给中国大地上默默苦行的乡村英雄的悲壮之歌； 刘醒龙长篇《凤凰琴》续篇，时隔近二十年再看中国乡村教育的扛鼎之作
【作者】
刘醒龙，生于古城黄州，现为《芳草》文学杂志总编，华中师范大学客座教授，华中师范大学刘醒龙当代文学研究中心名誉主任。著有《刘醒龙文集》（27卷）等。散文《抱着父亲回故乡》获老舍散文奖，中篇小说《挑担茶叶上北京》获首届鲁迅文学奖，长篇小说《天行者》获第八届茅盾文学奖。 Born in 1956 in Tuanfeng in Hubei province, Liu Xinglong’s works include eleven novels and twelve collections of short stories. Some of his novels have been translated and published in English, French, Japanese and Korean. His novel The Sky Dwellers won the 8th Mao Dun Literature Prize, while his Holy Heaven’s Gate won the first Academy of Contemporary Chinese Literature Prize and the second China Novel Society Novel Prize. He has also won the Lu Xun Literature Prize for a novella and Taiwan’s United Literature Prize.