Speaking of Patricia · Highsmith, the name may be a little unfamiliar. She is a contemporary detective novelist in the United States who has brought earth-shaking changes to the entire detective literary world, and she herself has spent the last dozen years of her life writing in seclusion. The unfamiliarity with the name may have been what this unique female writer had anticipated, as she wrote: "I have never considered my 'place' in the history of literature, and perhaps I have no place at all." I see myself as someone who can entertain everyone, and I just want to tell you a great and engaging story. ”
On July 24, 1960, Patricia · Highsmith left a joke in her diary: Who cares if a writer lives or dies unless he wins the Nobel Prize?
In fact, Patricia · Highsmith's detective novels can be found on almost every bookshelf around the world, and she is not always hidden from the eyes of the world as she imagined, even if she was accompanied only by her cats and snails in the last ten years of her life.
When it comes to her novels, "Train Monster" has already shown her amazing talent as her debut novel. As soon as this book came out, Alfred · Hitchcock, known as the "master of suspense", took the initiative to contact her to obtain the rights to adapt the novel into a movie...... In total, Highsmith wrote 22 novels and countless short stories during his lifetime. The characters in her novels are both cruel and lovable, such as "Tom · Ripley", a likable psychopath who is a cold-blooded killer but has a special appreciation for the finer and more luxurious things in life. It is through this kind of character that Highsmith breaks the plot shackles of traditional detective novels.
In November 2021, Patricia · Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notes: 1941-1995, published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, further revealed the unknown side of this genius and mysterious female writer.
Recently, Shanghai Xinchao Bookstore invited editors from Shanghai Translation Publishing House to share and discuss this literary "outsider" who is "as mysterious as an oyster" with readers. Let's hear what they have to say -
Wang Xia, Founder of Shanghai Xinchao Book House: It is a happy and lucky thing to be able to write, and Highsmith is such a living person who immerses his whole life in words. Storytelling is her innate ability, how to face every day in the depths of her soul, how to live authentically, is a subject that she often tortures herself, and "Patricia · Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notes: 1941-1995" records, thinks, and expresses ...... When you open a text at will, you can look at her and smile, as if you have known her for many years, and you will be happy and amazed that a savagely grown, warm and fresh genius girl is beside you, and you are deeply attracted to her!
Reader Yang Yijing: Highsmith is not only a "genius girl" in people's impressions, but also a woman who is not tolerated by the social environment at that time, who uses writing to get out of her own life, confront secular prejudices, and realize her dreams step by step in the male-dominated literary world. She never gave up her pursuit of art, and with her unique writing, she left one of the greatest artistic self-portraits of the twentieth century.
Reader Ah Zhuang: "She writes down every detail of her life, love and loss in a diary, and notes her philosophical observations and records of the creative process in a notebook", these diaries and notes are like two mirrors, reflecting her life and work from different angles, allowing the reader to see, in the author's own words, how Patricia · Highsmith became Patricia · Highsmith!