溫情小說請靠邊 現在流行“女性黑色小說”

2012年暢銷的小說《50道陰影》讓mummy porn一詞在西方大熱。到了2014年，女性讀者的口味似乎又變了，她們現在喜歡看謀殺、背叛等題材的女性小說，這類小說叫做chick noir（女性黑色小說）。

The expression chick noir describes a type of novel which usually has a female author, features strong female protagonists and is written with women as its target audience, but unlike the classically 'girlie' topics of love, romance and domestic humor, focuses on 'dark' themes – betrayal, murder, and even horror.

女性黑色小說（chick noir）指女性作者寫的以強勢女性為主角、且目標讀者為女性的一種小說體裁，不過該體裁并不是以傳統的愛情、婚戀以及家庭幽默為主題，而多為背叛、謀殺，甚至恐怖等“黑色”主題。

This is a new wave of writing in which there's no happy ending, child-rearing or emotional journey of unrequited love, but rather crime, mystery, plot twists and intrigue – psychological thrillers in the truest sense. These stories are typically nestled between book covers which have swapped pastels, ethereal decoration and dreamy window-gazers for black, broken glass, and the faces of petrified females. Predictably, and in true 'chick' style, these stories usually have some kind of relationship at their core, and for this reason are sometimes described as marriage thrillers, often based on the idea that those closest to us might be harboring dark and unpleasant secrets.

這是一種新的寫作風格，這種小說里沒有皆大歡喜的結局、養育子女或者單相思的情感經歷，內容都是有關犯罪、迷局，情節轉折離奇，屬于真正意義上的心理驚悚小說。這些故事的封面由以往女性小說常見的粉筆畫、外部文字說明和夢幻的窗扉換成了黑色的、破碎的玻璃，而封底則是驚嚇過度的女性面龐。可以預見的是，作為“女性”風格的文學，這些故事的核心通常會有一些感情糾葛，因此，這類故事有時也被稱為婚姻驚悚小說，傳達的理念通常都是，離我們最近的那些人可能恰恰隱藏著一些黑暗又不可告人的秘密。

The expression chick noir takes inspiration from the earlier term chick lit, which first appeared in the early nineties to describe a genre of novels designed to appeal to women, usually written by women and with female protagonists. The male equivalent is lad lit, and there have been further spin-offs too, such as gran lit for older female readers. Chick flick is the popular term for chick lit's movie counterpart. (Source: macmillandictionary.com)

Chick noir這個表達的靈感來源于上世紀九十年代初期出現的一個詞chick lit，即由女性作者寫的以女性為主角且面向女性的小說——女性文學。與其對應的男性文學為lad lit，其他衍生詞還有gran lit，即老年女性文學。Chick flick則是指女性電影。

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen）