The bad news just doesn’t seem to let up. The other day my publisher friend Mariia emailed from Kharkiv in Ukraine. When I visited Kharkiv two years ago, it was poor, corrupt, dominated by a humungous statue of Lenin, and yet green, charming and peaceful. At least wars were over in Europe’s historic bloodlands, I thought then. Now, writes Mariia, refugees and orphans are streaming in from Donetsk and Lugansk down the road. Maimed soldiers fill Kharkiv’s military hospital. Mariia says: “We will have a lost generation. The time of Hemingway and Remarque returns.” Other former Soviet republics watch in terror.
似乎沒個盡頭。前幾天我的出版商朋友瑪利亞(Mariia)從烏克蘭哈爾科夫發來一封電子郵件。兩年前我去哈爾科夫時，那裏民生凋敝、官僚腐敗，一尊巨大的列寧雕像俯臨城區，然而，這又是一座鬱鬱蔥蔥、寧靜、迷人的城市。我當時想，至少戰爭已遠離了這片歐洲歷史上著名的血色之地。而現在，瑪利亞在郵件中寫道，頓涅茨克和盧甘斯克的難民和孤兒正源源不斷地湧向這裏。哈爾科夫市的部隊醫院裏擠滿了傷殘士兵。瑪利亞說：「我們將迎來迷失的一代。海明威(Hemingway)和雷馬克(Remarque)的時代又回來了。」其他前蘇聯加盟共和國正驚恐地目睹著這一切。