THE BEAUTY OF ROTTEN REJECTIONS 退稿之美

Writers always feel underappreciated in some ways. I always wonder, “what will be its destination?” after sending my article to the publishers, yet I could never know. This is why the book “Rotten Rejections”, with an extraordinary collection of rejection letters sent by publishers to renowned writers, touched me so much. Harsh comments like “It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA” and “it would be extremely rotten taste if we publish it” are respectively included in the letter to George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway. Sounds miserable? Compared with writers in Hong Kong, they aren’t. They were at least enabled to know the final destination of their works.

寫作投稿的人，大多常有懷才不遇之感。把稿件寄出以後，總不斷忖度它的去向。究竟是石沉大海，還是被丟到垃圾桶呢？可惜我總無法得悉，《退稿信》一書因而成為我的最大安慰，裡面蒐羅著名作家所曾收過的退稿信。例如喬治．奧威爾的《動物農莊》就曾因「關於動物的故事在美國根本賣不出去」而被棄掉；大文豪海明威更曾被侮辱：「若出版這本書，我們會被形容為『品味差勁無比』」。呃，其實相比起香港的寫作人，他們還算幸運，起碼能知道作品的去向啊。