介绍:
In many ways, writing is like cooking.
But when a writer stews Arthur Conan Doyle and John Grisham together, while spiced with a dash of Agasha Christie: is it going to be a gastronomic wonder, or a pot of hotchpotch lacking in flavor?
Check out Chinese author He Jiahong's Hong Jun series, you may get the idea.
"I created a kind of role model for lawyers in China. Because I think that for promoting the rule of law in China, we need lawyers and we need good lawyers, we need noble lawyers. "
Set in the mid-1990s, the protagonist Hong Jun is a morally-driven criminal lawyer who opens a private firm in Beijing. Entrenched in the office, he and his assistant, a charming and brave young lady, patiently wait for clients knocking at the door, and then take on whirling, crusading journeys to investigate bewildering cases.
That sounds awfully familiar, right?
But there is still something distinctive of He Jianhong's fictions, as all of them are inspired by the writer's personal experiences as a law professor and practitioner. In the first installment of the series, Hanging Devils, or known as "Xue Zhi Zui"in Chinese, the lawyer is entrusted by a dubious builder to inspect a cold case. The upstart's brother spends ten years in jail for a crime he did not commit. Since then, the hero is beckoned into an intricate spiderweb woven by rape, murder, corruption and fraud.
"Because I am also a law professor, so when I was writing my novels, I would naturally put my ideas about law, about our criminal justice system into my novels. The first novel is about wrongful conviction. So I wanted to use it to illustrate the loopholes in our criminal justice system. So how (did) those miscarriages of justice happen? How (did) these tragic happen? But generally speaking, I don't want to blame just one person. The person involved, they are common people. They could make mistakes, especially when the environment has some bad effects on people's behavior."
In his pursuit for justice, Hong travels to a snow-cloaked county of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. Over there, the quick-witted lawyer steps into a world that is unfathomable and glossed-over. During his tactful intercourse with deceptive, cunning bureaucrats and businessman, he not only unveils a past intertwined with love and lust, but also sets himself against an old scar.
"Crime novel or detective story is just a way to tell story. In fact, I really wanted to write a general novel about human nature and human life. "
For readers who were born in the 60s and 70s, reading the book may feel like travelling back in time, as the writer meticulously maps out the daily dynamics of that fretful and vibrant era.
But could the story like this appeal to today's young generation?
He Jiahong provides his answer.
"Chinese legal system has been developing quite rapidly in the past thirty years, including the changes in our criminal procedure law. But we have to know, the changes are based on the 1990s system. Probably not many young people are very interested in that part of history. But I think in terms of the modern development of society in China, 1980s and 1990s are very important period. That's big changing."
Translated into multiple languages including English, Hanging Devils was listed by the Guardian as one of Top Asian Crime Fictions in 2007.
大家还在听
