弗朗西斯科•沃尔索｜钓出新未来，钓鱼城科幻！【中英双语版】
文/弗朗西斯科·沃尔索 译/李懿
作为钓鱼城科幻中心荣誉主任之一，在全球疫情严峻的当下，我感觉有些沮丧：因为我住在意大利罗马，跟整个团队隔着半个世界，只能看看会议视频、课堂快报、活动照片。当未来正在重庆全速展开，我却只能在微信推送、在线会议、视频分享、电子邮件和语音消息中遥望后尘。
虽错失之我命，然撰述之有幸。
一年前的12月27日，张凡带我漫步移通校园，一路向我讲解可用于举办各类活动的诸多场馆。校园位于重庆西北部的合川区，依山而建，其所在的重庆市是中国最大的城市之一，极具赛博朋克气息。
我们从座座书院、体育场、教学楼前走过，他的话语描摹出超乎想象的琳琅图景：“我们要在这里建一座UFO大楼，里面设置科幻翻译中心、三维科幻画室、作家和编辑中心、段子期冥想室、青少年活动中心……”
步行十分钟后，我们便抵达山顶，来到一座仍在施工中的两层圆形建筑前。在那里，他继续向我讲述着进一步的计划：“我们要在这儿组织为期四周的‘未来小说工坊’，教给新一代年轻人和新生代作者如何成为科幻大师，包括作家、译者、插画师、设计师、编剧、导演等各个领域。”
来合川前一个月，在北京召开的另一场科幻大会上，张凡与我促膝相谈，勾勒了新未来的蓝图：创意写作工坊、新的科幻大奖，以及打造一条全新的路径，与中国及世界文娱界开发产业链合作。我们的梦想完全一致：以中国为核心打造世界性多文化社区，这一目标即使因新冠疫情有所延迟，但绝不会抹除。
如此雄心大略能转化为项目落地，得益于翔美教育集团给予的大力财政支持，部署了长期的投资助力科幻发展。在这里需要强调关键的一点：钓鱼城科幻中心是一个非营利组织，每一笔资金都将保证合理的流向，为新世代学子培养多种技能与素质，以理解并应对风起云涌的新千年所带来的难以想象的变革：
在未来50—100年内，人工智能是否会在大多数岗位上替代人类？
气候紧急状态是否会影响经济发展、人口迁徙、土地规划？
区块链应用及溯源系统能否有助于提高链上食品安全性？
社交网络及虚假新闻是否会致使舆论的“科学—公知”两极化愈发突出？
碳基经济以及灰暗的赛博朋克式城市前景，是否会被更具可持续性的太阳朋克式弹性社区替代？
人口结构与增长模型是否会因生物工程以及CRISPR-Cas9基因编辑技术的进展而发生变化？
新的伦理与道德价值观能否帮助我们在未来现实的迷雾中领航？
虽然整个世界都急于了解未来几年将发生什么，欧美的一部分大学甚至还开设了未来研究的课程，但我却只在中国发现了对科幻的深度兴趣与支持。科幻这种文类将当前投射到未来，以检验任何一种可能的结果，只有这种文类能够在最为安全的可能性条件下创造或毁灭世界。
初识张凡时，他计划招募15人组建首批团队。他忙着收简历、面试应聘者、为如此具有挑战性的事业设立各项规程。
“我们将从中国的大学生中选拔最具实力的新秀，”他曾在校园附近的某张火锅桌或茶桌边这样告诉我，“让他们直接师从于当今最优秀的国内国际科幻作家以及嘉宾。我们将设立在整个中国乃至整个亚洲最具权威性的科幻奖项，加强与日本、韩国、印度文学界的联系。”
一步又一步，一句又一句，我逐渐体会到，钓鱼城科幻中心将会倾力打造一种新的现实，这将令中国国内乃至国际科幻界叹为观止，因为任何社会的未来文学都主张创新，而科幻书里的创新恰是令人拍案叫绝的典范。建设科幻中心这个想法，应该会得到许多有意向探索“未来事物形态”的国家的热烈欢迎。
“第一年之后，”他继续道，“如果一切按计划进行，我们将招募更多人才，在另外两所位于山西、山东的大学陆续建立科幻中心，经过三年的发展，达到总人数50人的规模。”
宏伟蓝图已经初步展望，而奠基的砖石正在稳步铺就。
要钓出新未来，这是一个有力的理念：只要想一想，传统科幻界总是在英美小说的“旧湖”里垂钓，那么你会发现，在重庆开创一个科幻中心，才真正是迈入未知的旅途。科幻不就是要在幻想的边疆开荒拓土吗？科幻的征程不就是要把昨日的不可能往更广更深处推进吗？最重要的是，科幻不就是颠覆现实常识的最佳（甚或是唯一）手段吗？
我深信，要保持科幻的活力与新奇，就必须勇敢地踏足新的土地，翻译陌生语言的作品，接纳那些一直被排除在国际未来对话之外的人士，把话语权交给那些仅仅因为不说英语就被视作“异类”或局外人的群体。
假如我们一直坐在安逸的湖岸，只使用顺手的鱼竿在同一片旧湖里垂钓，自然仍可继续享受美味的湖鱼，但如此周而复始……我们绝无机会遇见白鲸，也不可能发现居于海洋的奇妙生物，因为能捕获它们的唯一方式，就是带上翻译与之同船出海，此人必须是了解各海域的专家，熟知各地文化与语言，唯有能理解未来的探险家，才能从尚未测绘的明日之地带回珍贵的述闻。
不得不与同事们分隔在大洋两端的几个月里，我见证了钓鱼城科幻惊人的发展与壮大进程。越来越多的人加入这个团队，为之注入新的活力，共同实现一项文化壮举，追逐未来初露的微光。
挑战已明确摆在面前，钓鱼城科幻也敲定了主要的任务方向：
当然，未来不等人，它总会以自己的方式降临，所以，与其盲目预测，不如从容迎接，就像重庆移通学院钓鱼城科幻中心，正在钓出新的未来！
钓鱼城科幻中心荣誉主任,未来小说工坊国际校长。意大利科幻小说大师,多次获得国际科幻小说大奖,主要著作包括：《人体解毒剂》《电子玩偶》（乌拉尼亚奖）、《继人类》（奥德赛奖和意大利最佳小说奖）、《征血队》（乌拉尼亚奖）和《我,漫游者》。其中,《继人类》与《征血队》已由萨莉•麦考里译成英文,在美国、英国出版,并由张凡与胡绍晏译为中文。多次参与世界科幻大会、欧洲科幻大会以及中国科幻大会,并担任公共发言人。2020年,发起“未来科幻大会”（FutureCon）,来自25个国家/地区的67名知名作家参加了会议。
其运营的多元文化项目“未来小说”出版了来自20多个国家,10多门语言的优秀科幻作品,其中包括詹姆斯•凯利、伊恩•麦克唐纳、刘宇昆、刘慈欣、陈楸帆、夏笳、帕特•卡迪根、奥利维尔•帕奎特、范达娜•辛格、拉维•提德哈、法比奥•费尔南德斯、叶卡捷琳娜•塞迪亚等作家的作品。与妻子和女儿住在罗马,个人网站www.futurefiction.org。
FISHING NEW FUTURES FROM THE FORTRESS OF CHONGQING
By Francesco Verso
As one of the Honorable Deans of the Fishing Fortress Center of SF during a global pandemic time, I feel a bit frustrated: that’s because I live in Rome (Italy), half a world away from the team, and I can only watch meetings, read about classrooms and look at pictures of conventions. I am left with WeChat posts, online conferences, shared videos, emails and vocal messages, while the Future is being deployed at full speed in Chongqing.
And yet I feel so lucky to be able to talk about it.
Just one year one, on the 27th of December, Zhang Fan was taking me for a walk along the Hechuan Campus showing me all the locations where many activities would have taken place. The campus was spreading up and down the hills of a northwestern district of Chongqing, one of the biggest and most cyberpunkish megacities of China.
While we passed in front of many students’ dorms, sport facilities and teaching buildings, his words sounded like an incredible mirage: “Here we’ll build an Auditorium, there we’ll have a Science Fiction Translation Center, and then 3D SF Atelier, a chill-out zone for writers, a Meditation Room and a place for kids to read and play…”
After a 10 minute walking we reached the top of the hill to enter into a round, 2-story building that was still under construction. There he continued to tell me some other plans: “Here we’ll organize a 4 weeks long Future Fiction Workshop to teach a whole new generation of young and emerging authors how to become professionals in Science Fiction, from writers to translators, from illustrators to designers, from screenwriters to directors.”
One month before my visit in Hechuan, during another Science Fiction convention in Beijing, Zhang Fan and I sat town at a table and sketched the outline of a creative writing workshop, a new Science Fiction Award and a whole new path to develop editorial relationships with cultural and entertaining sectors in China and the rest of the World.
We were dreaming exactly the same dream: a global multicultural community revolving around China that the coronavirus could only delay but not erase.
Such powerful vision was made possible thanks to the help of the Xiangmei Education Group that gave him the financial support to deploy a long-term investment in Science Fiction. It’s crucial indeed to highlight the fact that the Fishing Fortress Center of SF is a non-profit project, that money comes in for a good reason: to teach and enable new generations with the tools to understand and cope with the incredible transformations that await us in this new troubled millennium:
Will AIs take over the majority of human jobs in a matter of 50-100 years?
Will climate emergency affect economic developments, mass migrations and land management?
Will blockchain applications and tracking systems help to improve chain food safety?
Will social networks and fake news influence any scientific truth and common knowledge polarizing every discussion?
Will carbon-based economies and gloomy cyberpunk urban setting be replaced by more sustainable solarpunk resilient communities?
Will demography and human reproduction be transformed by achievements in biotechnology and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing?
Will new ethics and moral value help us to navigate better among the dense fog of future realities?
Although the whole world is eager to understand what will happen in the coming years and Future Studies are being taught in some universities in the USA and Europe, it’s only in China that I’ve found an immense level of interest and support for Science Fiction, a literature that projects the present into the future to test any possible outcome, the only kind of literature that is able to create and destroy worlds in the safest possible way.
At that time, Zhang Fan was hiring 15 people to create the first team. He was busy making interviews to applicants, receiving CVs and setting up all the bureaucratic procedures that such challenging enterprise required.
“We’ll invite the most promising talents from the Chinese universities,” he told during a break for eating hot-pot or drinking tea next to the Campus, “they will learn from the best contemporary SF writers and international guests. We’ll set up the most prestigious SF Award in China – and possibly in Asia – to strengthen literary relationships with Japan, Korea and India.”
Step by step, sentence by sentence, I was left with the feeling that the Fishing Fortress Center would contribute to shape an amazing reality, both for national Chinese SF and maybe even at the International level, also because Future Literacy fosters innovation in any society just like an excellent novum does in Science Fiction books.
The idea of a Science Fiction center should be embraced by many other countries interested in exploring the “shape of the things to come”…
“After the first year,” he continued, “if all goes according to the plan, we’ll hire more people in order to have around 50 persons in three years, because we’ll have two other universities involved, one in Shaanxi and the other one in Shandong province.”
The roll-out was already imagined, while the first bricks were being laid down.
Fishing New Futures is a powerful concept: if you consider that Science Fiction has been traditionally “fishing” stories always in the same lake of American and English fiction, you realize that developing a Science Fiction Center in Chongqing is a real journey into the unknown. But isn’t Science Fiction about exploring new frontiers? Isn’t Science Fiction a quest to push the borders of what we considered impossible just yesterday? But most of all, isn’t Science Fiction the best (and perhaps the only) tool to subvert what reality consider common sense?
I am deeply convinced that to keep the Science Fiction genre alive and fresh we’ll have to brave enough to walk on new terrains, to translate from unknown languages, to include who has always been excluded from the global conversation about the future, and to give voice to whoever is still considered an “alien” or simply an outsider, just because she/he/they didn’t speak English.
If we will continue to fish in the same old lake, sitting on the same comfortable shores, with the usual fishing pole, we will surely keep on eating the same juicy fishes, but over and over again… and we will never have the chance to meet the White Whale or discover the wonderful creatures that populate the Oceans, because the only way we have to go chasing them is to board on a boat and sail together with a translator, an expert of different waters, cultures and languages, the only explorer that can understand and bring back precious stories from the uncharted maps of tomorrow.
During these months of forced separation from the team, I’ve witnessed it’s incredible growth and development. More people are joining the project, more energies are being infused into the making of a cultural breakthrough: chasing the Future where it’s just dawning.
The challenge is clear and the many missions of the Fishing Fortress could be the following:
-to scout and nurture literary quality coming from Chinese students and established International authors.
-to foster and promote interdisciplinary studies in literature, cinema, comics, videogames, design, theater, music, performing arts and much more…
-to strengthen and facilitate international relationships across borders through meetings, workshop, conventions, professional residencies, translations and awards.
Surely the Future doesn’t wait for us and it will arrive one way or another, so instead of trying to predict it, it would much better to prepare for it, like it’s already happening in the Fishing Fortress Center of Chongqing…
文编/阿 猫
美编/吴灵霜 吴冰鑫
审核/程晓娇
段子期：与科幻无关的日子
遨游银河星宇，打破性别定义，书写未来科幻——钓鱼城科幻主题论坛
钓鱼城科幻未来科幻大师的养成者