美国历史学家、传记作家凯·伯德近日在上海推介中文版《美国普罗米修斯：罗伯特·奥本海默的胜利与悲剧》。在过去的六个月里，这位 72 岁的老人还前往意大利和英国，推广这本 2005 年他与已故历史学家马丁·J·舍温（Martin J. Sherwin）共同完成的为 “原子弹之父” 撰写的传记。American historian and biographer Kai Bird was recently in Shanghai to promote the Chinese edition of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.Over the past six months, the 72-year-old has also traveled to Italy and Britain to discuss his 2005 biography of the theoretical physicist,also known as “the father of the atomic bomb”.这本 700 页的书以奥本海默的生活故事为中心，这些故事与科学、第二次世界大战和冷战政治交织在一起。该书赢得了多项荣誉，包括 2006 年普利策传记或自传奖。尽管取得了这些成就，但直到最近它才成为畅销书。The 700-page book is centered on stories from Oppenheimer’s life interwoven with science, World War II, and Cold War politics.The book has won several accolades, including the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for a Biography or Autobiography. Despite these achievements, it was not a bestseller until recently.accolade /ˈækəleɪd/ 荣誉；荣誉称号授予仪式；连谱号；称赞 随着7月份诺兰的电影《奥本海默》上映，这本书终于进入了《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜， 持续五个多月至今。这部时长三个小时的电影也成为有史以来最成功的传记片——上映后仅两个月，全球票房就达到了惊人的 9.13 亿美元。Following the release of Nolan’s film Oppenheimer in July, the book finally found its way into The New York Times bestseller list. In fact, the book is still there today, five months on.The three-hour movie has also become the most successful biopic ever — its box office takings just two months after its release amounted to a whopping $913 million globally.“在诺兰打电话之前，我们有点放弃了。我们认为这永远不会发生。这个故事太复杂了，”伯德在接受《中国日报》独家采访时说道。直到读了诺兰的剧本（他称其“精彩”且“忠实”地改编了原著）后，伯德才开始感到希望。“它公正地展现了两个主要故事情节——奥本海默在制造武器方面取得的科学胜利，以及奥本海默因 1954 年发生的事情而受到严重伤害的悲剧。” “It did justice to the two main storylines — the scientific triumph that Oppenheimer had in building the weapon, and the tragedy that Oppenheimer was terribly wounded by what happened in 1954,” Bird says.但传记作者仍然怀疑这部电影是否会受到观众的欢迎，理由是大多数美国年轻人从未听说过奥本海默。“我想大多数中国人也从未听说过他，”他说。“为什么年轻一代会去看一部关于他们并不熟知的科学家的电影？”But the biographer was still skeptical that the film would be a hit with the audiences, citing how most young Americans had never heard of Oppenheimer.“I assume most Chinese had never heard about him either,” he says.“Why would the younger generation go to see a movie about an unknown scientist?”事实证明，这部电影的成功对这本书产生了连锁反应。事实上，其影响如此明显，以至于该书后来以更多外语出版。中信出版集团于2023年8月出版了该书的简体中文版。“作为传记作家，我们的动机是利用奥本海默的一生来传达我们对他个人生活的赞叹以及他所经历的更宏大的历史，并探讨一些重大问题，例如，原子弹是否需要结束战争？今天我们如何看待核武器？我们能与核弹和平共存吗？”伯德说。 “Our motivation as biographers was to use Oppenheimer's life to convey both the fascination we had with his personal life, and the larger history of what he lived through, and to address some of the big questions like, was the atomic bomb necessary to end the war? How do we think about nuclear weapons today? Can we live with the bomb?”伯德说，他和舍温都同意，奥本海默的故事最吸引人的地方是他在取得成功之后，却迅速迎来了人生急转之下的重大转折。这个悲剧性的转折仍能在今天“引起共鸣”，因为在处理人工智能这一新的、未知的科学技术领域时，我们正生活在“另一个奥本海默时刻”。“He was a great public intellectual. Yet he was disinvited from even given speeches at universities,” Bird says, adding that it's a tragedy that resonates today because we are living “another Oppenheimer moment” when dealing with artificial intelligence, a new, unchartered territory of science and technology.如今，我们已经很难看到像奥本海默这样既在专业领域取得巨大成就，又极具社会影响力的科学家了，大众似乎并不将科学家视为公共知识分子。伯德认为，这在一定程度上可以追溯到奥本海默的时代，他在1954年的遭遇向科学界传递了一条信息，那就是不要以公共知识分子的身份站上政治舞台，科学家应该待在自己狭窄的研究领域里，只谈科学，不谈政治，否则就会像奥本海默一样遭到诬告和公开羞辱。“We need scientists to explain some of the choices that we should be thinking about, yet we don’t have scientific heroes any longer,” he says. “I think one of the reasons is that in 1954, we destroyed Oppenheimer in the secret hearing, and that sent a message to scientists, warning them not to step out of their narrow lane of expertise and pretend that they could become public intellectuals,” he adds.“这就是这本书和这部电影引起人们共鸣的原因之一。我们需要更多的奥本海默。”“That’s one of the reasons why the book and the movie have resonated with people. We need more Oppenheimers.”记者：林淑娟