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I think, therefore I am. - René Descartes
《时代》周刊最近出炉的世界一百名最有影响的人物名单中，有三名当代美国作家入选，他们是 Khaled Hosseini，Elizabeth Gilbert 和 Stephenie Meyer，碰巧这几位都是我喜欢的作家。
Khaled Hosseini 出生在阿富汗，其父是一名阿富汗外交官。在苏军占领阿富汗期间，Hosseini 和他的父亲逃离了他们的祖国，辗转移民到美国，他的成名作，The Kite Runner，就是根据他早年的经历写成的自传体小说。Khaled Hosseini 是一位生活在旧金山的医生，从事业余写作，迄今为止共出版了两本书（The Kite Runner 和 A Thousand Splendid Suns)，都是 New York Times 上的畅销书。尤其是 The Kite Runner 一书，被好莱坞拍成了电影，并译成许多文字，影响了世界各地成千上万的人。正像美国总统夫人 Laura Bush 在下面的介绍中所说的，“很少有人写第一本小说就获得成功。更没有几个人能够用自己的写作改变世界。而43岁的 Khaled Hosseini 这两点都做到了。”
Elizabeth Gilbert 曾经是颇有名气的杂志专栏作家，她的 Pilgrims 一书曾获 PEN/Hemingway Award。但真正让她大红大紫的是2006年出版的 Eat，Pray，Love。在这本书中，Gilbert 叙述了她去意大利，印度和印度尼西亚的游历，通过游记的形式描述了她心路历程的嬗变和升华，对生命的价值和生活的意义做了深刻的探索。Gilbert 选择这三个都是依英文字母 “I” 开头的国家，代表了她情感心智厉练的不同阶段和方面：去意大利是为了享受那里的语言，美食和醇酒，满足感官上的愉悦，更多的是形而下的追求；在印度，通过练习瑜珈和体验禁欲生活，作形而上的反省，是为了灵魂的洗礼；而在印尼的巴厘岛，也是她文化苦旅的最后一站，她终于找到了自己的真爱和友谊，找到了沟通形而上和形而下的和谐所在，达到了身与心的平衡。该书是 New York Times 的最佳畅销书，获 New York Times Notable Book 称号，并被译成20多种语言。据说好莱坞已经将 Eat，Pray，Love 一书的版权买下，准备拍成电影，由 Julie Roberts 主演。但是，对于一本侧重描述心灵成长的故事，如何把它通过电影的蒙太奇语言在银幕上表达出来，应该是一个不小的挑战。
Stephenie Meyer 可算是在 Harry Potter 的作者 J. K. Rowling 之后的另一位（坐家）女奇人。她是住在 Phoenix 的一位家庭主妇，丈夫工作，她在家里照顾三个孩子，此前从未从事过写作。据 Stephenie Meyer 讲，有一天她做了一个梦，梦见一个女孩和一个俊美的吸血鬼在树林里幽会。第二天，她把这个梦悄悄的记了下来，从此一发而不可收拾，只用了不到半年的时间就完成了小说，Twilight。之后又出版了 New Moon 和 Eclipse。 Twilight 系列荣膺 New York Times，Publisher Weekly 和 Amazon 最佳畅销书称号，并在世界各地30多个国家和地区发行，成为 Harry Potter 之后青少年读者的阅读新宠。好莱坞根据该书拍摄的电影，也将于今年年底发行。除了吸血鬼题材的诡异，再加上浪漫，悬疑等畅销书要素外，Twilight 系列最大特点是浪漫而不诉诸感官欲望，这在情欲横流甚至有人张扬“用下半身写作”的今天，实在是一件让健康的心智感到欣慰的事情。另外，通过写吸血鬼和人之间的爱情恩怨来宣示浪漫情感的真谛，也算是浪漫小说的一种极致了。
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Intro from Time as follows.
Khaled Hosseini
By Laura Bush
Not many people write successful first novels. Still fewer are able to change the world with their writing. Khaled Hosseini, 43, has done both. His 2003 novel, The Kite Runner, introduced readers around the world to the people of Afghanistan. Four years later, he published A Thousand Splendid Suns—and helped his audience see the faces of the women under the burqas.
Hosseini's stories are set against the backdrop of Afghanistan's tumultuous history. His complex portrayal of human nature, however, transcends geographic boundaries. In more than 40 languages, readers everywhere can recognize the best and worst in humanity in his characters—often in the same person.
In America, Hosseini's writing has invited many to look beyond the post-9/11 stereotypes about his birth country. We have grown to see Afghanistan as a land of men and women, each with their own hopes and longings for love.
The U.S. office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recognized The Kite Runner's impact by naming Hosseini the 2006 Humanitarian of the Year. Since then, his work as a goodwill envoy has taken him to the homes of returning Afghan refugees and to camps in eastern Chad.
Hosseini has said his novels intertwine the "intimate and personal" with the "broad and historical." As President Bush and I have encountered him through his writing and his work, we've discovered that his life does much the same.
Bush, an activist on behalf of Afghan women, is First Lady of the U.S.
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Elizabeth Gilbert
By John Hodgman
If you are the person in America who has not yet read Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, this is a beautiful book about Liz's journey around the world after her divorce. It has touched countless lives, including Oprah Winfrey's, and I was glad of this, because I am Liz's friend. But when I saw her on Oprah, I was also angry: "What about her beautiful short stories?" I yelled at the TV. "Talk about those, Liz!" But she didn't. Liz just smiled radiantly and kept on changing lives.
Because we are friends, I get to call her "Liz" Gilbert. In fact, I sometimes don't even say "Gilbert." Just "Gilb." We met when we appeared in The Paris Review's "New Writers" issue in 1996. But she wasn't new. As a writer, she was already accomplished, funny and wise beyond her years. As a person, doubly so.
When my mother was dying, I asked Liz if she believed in an afterlife. Of everyone I knew, I figured Liz, 38, was probably the only one who had really thought it through. The answer she offered is still a great comfort to me, though I won't reveal it here. It's private; plus, I don't want to ruin sales of my next book, Liz Gilbert's Answer Regarding the Afterlife. I know a moneymaker when I hear one.
So I really was not surprised when I heard she would be on Oprah. It's about time, I thought. But when I saw her there, I was angry and jealous. I suddenly understood how many people now knew my friend Liz, and how those of us who love her would now have to share her. I can accept that now. That is good. But it won't stop me from telling you that my friend Liz wrote the best short story I have ever read. It's in Issue 141 of The Paris Review, and it will make you gasp.
Hodgman's actual next book is More Information Than You Require
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Stephenie Meyer
By Orson Scott Card
Nobody was looking for Twilight. A Mormon housewife writes a young-adult novel about a love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire?
Is this Anne Rice lite? Not in the eyes of the teenagers—and their mothers—who have embraced the book.
But Stephenie Meyer's Twilight does raise some questions, and I've asked them. "You really want your teenage daughter to live inside the story of a girl who lies to her parents, invites a boy to sleep in her bed and trusts him not to take advantage of her?"
These women look at me as if I'm insane. "But she can trust him. He really loves her. He's...perfect."
In an era when much of the romance genre has been given over to soft porn, and dark fantasy is peopled with one-dimensional characters bent on grim violence, many readers have become hungry for pure romantic fantasy—lots of sexual tension, but as decorous as Jane Austen.
Meyer, 34, did not calculatedly reach for that audience. Instead, she wrote the story she believed in and cared about. She writes with luminous clarity, never standing between the reader and the dream they share. She's the real thing. Still, who'd have thought it? Today Mr. Darcy is a vampire.
Card is author of Ender's Game, Empire and Women of Genesis
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Have to agree with you: The Kite Runner is indeed a stunning read, the only thing I wish the language were more refined. Well, guess you can't ask too much as in this novel it is the story that holds the weight.
If you want to try something different, then go get the Eat, Pray, Love. I'm sure you will enjoy it.
Thanks!