Chapter 28
Zhou Libo and Rainstorm
周立波（1908-1979），湖南益陽人，著名作家、翻譯家。出身於私塾教師之家。1924年秋考入長沙省立第一中學，在師長王季範、徐特立等影響教育下，思想追求進步，喜愛新文學。第一次大革命失敗後，輟學回縣在高小任教。1928年春隨周揚到上海，後考入江灣勞動大學經濟係學習，參加革命互濟會活動。1930年春因散發傳單被校方開除。不久返鄉，開始從事文學寫作和翻譯。1931年“九.一八事變”後，到上海神州國光社當校對員。次年因參加工人罷工被捕入獄。1934年7月被保釋出獄，加入中國左翼作家聯盟。
Zhou Libo, 1908-1979, a naive of Yiyang, Hunan, was a famous writer and translator from a private tutor family. In 1924, he enrolled at the No. 1 Middle School to study under Wang Jifan and Xu Teli, who introduced him to progressive ideas and modern literature. After the first Great Revolution failed, he returned home to work as a primary school teacher. In the spring of 1928, he followed Zhou Yang to Shanghai. There he enrolled at the Economics Department of Jiangwan Labour University and joined revolutionary organization Mutual Association. In the spring of 1930, he was expelled from the university for distributing pamphlets. Soon after that, he returned home and took up literary writing and translation. After the outbreak of September Eighteenth Incident in 1931, he worked as a proofreader with Shanghai Shenzhou Guoguang Press. Later he was imprisoned for getting involved in a strike. In July 1934, he was bailed out and joined China League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.
1935年1月加入中國共產黨，任《時事新報》副刊《每周文學》編輯。他積極從事左翼文藝運動，當時以及在以後的歲月裏翻譯了《被開墾的處女地》、《北極光》、《白海運河》、《大雪生私生活》、《杜布羅夫斯基》、《一個琴師的故事》、《馳名的跳蛙》、《貴客》、《秘密的中國》以及《寄宿舍》等文學作品，數量多達二百萬餘字。
In January of 1935, he joined the Communist Party and became an editor with Literature Weekly, the supplement to New Journal of Current Affairs. He took active part in left-wing literary movement. During that period and later, he translated The Virgin Land Cultivated, The Virgin Land Cultivated, The Northern Lights, White Sea-Baltic Canal, The Private Life of Undergraduates, Dubrovsky, The Story of a Musician, The Celebrated Jumping Frog, Distinguished Guest, Secret China, The Dormitory and so on, which amount to over two million Chinese characters.
1937年抗日戰爭爆發後，赴華北抗日前線八路軍前方總部，任戰地記者，寫出報告文學與散文集。1938年冬到湖南參加編輯《抗戰日報》。1939年5月被周恩來調到桂林，任《救亡日報》編輯。同年12月到達延安。1944年任八路軍南下第一支隊司令部秘書，隨軍南征。
After the outbreak of Anti-Japanese War in 1937, he went to the front-line headquarters where he worked as a war correspondent, writing reportage and prose. In the winter of 1938, he went to Hunan to edit The Anti-Japanese War Daily. In May 1939, he was transferred by Zhou Enlai to Guilin working as an editor with Patriotic Daily. In December of the same year, he arrived in Yan’an In 1944, he was named secretary of the First Southern Detachment of the Eighth Route Army which was then on a southward expedition.
1947年開始創作《暴風驟雨》。《暴風驟雨》出版後在文壇引起巨大反響，1951年榮獲斯大林文學獎。《暴風驟雨》的人物和情節都比較簡單，但卻以細膩的筆觸描寫了具有偉大曆史意義的波瀾壯闊的土改運動，過程比較完整。作品從工作組進村掀起土改鬥爭寫起，除了寫鬥爭惡霸地主外，還寫了土改複查、分土地、挖浮財、起槍枝、打土匪，一直到最後掀起參軍熱潮。作品以東北地區鬆花江畔一個叫元茂屯的村子為背景，展示了艱苦卓絕的革命鬥爭畫麵，使人們清楚看到被封建生產關係束縛了千百年的中國農村是怎樣在政治、經濟、思想以至風俗習慣等各方麵經曆著偉大的變革，歌頌了中國農民在共產黨領導下衝決封建羅網，朝著解放的大道迅跑的革命精神。