东西，男，本名田代琳，1966年3月出生于中国广西，现为广西民族大学创作中心主任。主要作品有：长篇小说《耳光响亮》《后悔录》《篡改的命》等。中篇小说《没有语言的生活》获首届鲁迅文学奖，被改编为电影《天上的恋人》，由著名演员刘烨、陶虹等人主演，并获东京第十五届国际电影节“最佳艺术贡献奖”;《后悔录》获第四届华语文学传媒“2005年度小说家”奖;《篡改的命》进入中国小说学会2015年中国小说排行榜，获第六届“花城”文学奖·杰出作家奖。部分作品被翻译为英、法、韩、越南、德、泰、意大利、希腊、日文发表或出版。

　　东西被中国评论界称为“新生代作家”的代表，秉承了先锋文学的某些精神气质与文学禀赋。北京大学中文系教授陈晓明指出，“东西结构小说故事的能力很强，小说曲折跌宕，异趣横生，内里呼应反扣十分有力”;著名作家余华认为，“小说《篡改的命》中，东西努力写出他的人间戏剧，用生机勃勃的语言写下了生机勃勃的欺压和生机勃勃的抵抗”。

　　《耳光响亮》中书写的是牛家三姐弟生于乱世，犹如三棵烂泥滩上的青苗，在扭曲中成长。《没有语言的生活》讲述一个“看不见、听不到、说不出”的家庭组成，尽管几位家庭成员有交流上的困难，但他们彼此借助对方健康的器官，协调合作，完成了一件又一件正常人才能完成的事情。在语言喧哗、争吵不休的世界，东西笔下沉默的家庭成员反而给了人们某些启示。《后悔录》中的曾广贤因无知和恐惧，错过了向他大胆示爱的少女。当他的身体有了欲望冲动，便爬进他所仰慕的女人房间，没有肉体接触却被诬告成强奸犯。狱中十年，他获得了精神爱情。出狱后，他为从前的过错主动承担责任，连精神爱情也失去。从身体禁欲到之后身体开放的三十年过程中，曾广贤的每一次选择似乎都错了，因此他不停地后悔，认为他没有选择的道路才是最好的道路。

　　在东西的近作《篡改的命》中，汪长尺高考超分不被录取，进城打工，尊严被一点点削掉。为了儿子汪大志的未来，他悄悄把汪大志定点投放到有钱人家，变身“影子父亲”。汪大志被收养家庭改名林方生，大学毕业后做了警察，在重新调查汪长尺跳河一案时，发现其竟然是自己的生父。林方生陷入销毁档案或将养父绳之以法的两难……小说以黑色幽默状写了中国的两极分化。东西对笔下人物命运的悲悯，昭示了他的文学担当与社会责任感。

　　东西 Dong Xi

　　Dong Xi is the pen name of Tian Dailin. Male. Born in March 1966 in Guangxi. Currently the director of the Creative Center at the Guangxi University for Nationalities. His major works include the novels A Resounding Slap in the Face (Er Guang Xiang Liang), Record of Regret, and Tampering with Fate (Cuan Gai De Ming). His novella Life Without Language (Mei You Yu Yan De Sheng Huo) was awarded the inaugural Lu Xun Literary Prize in the National Excellent Novella Award category and was adapted into the film Sky Lovers. The film featured well-known actors Liu Ye and Tao Hong and also won an award in the Best Artistic Contribution category at the 15th Tokyo International Film Festival. Record of Regret received the Novelist of 2005 award in the 4th Chinese Language Literature Media Awards. Tampering with Fate was included in the Chinese Fiction Society’s 2015 list of Chinese novels and received the Outstanding Writer Prize in the 6th “Hua Cheng” Literary Awards. Some of his works have been published in English, French, Korean, Vietnamese, German, Thai, Italian, Greek, and Japanese.

　　Chinese critics see Dong Xi as representative of a new generation of writers, inheriting some of the spiritual temperament and literary gifts of China’s avant-garde movement of the late 1980s and 1990s. As stated by Professor Chen Xiaoming, a faculty member of the Chinese department at Peking University, “Dong Xi is skilled at structuring the plots of his novels. His books are complicated and intriguing, with a strong sense of symmetry.” Yu Hua, the famed writer of To Live and other works, has stated, “In Tampering with Fate, Dong Xi makes a conscientious effort to depict interpersonal dramas. With vivid language, he writes vividly about oppression and vivid acts of resistance.

　　A Resounding Slap in the Face is the story of three siblings in the Niu family. Born into troubled times, they grow up among disorder, like three sprouts growing along a muddy shore. Life Without Language features a family with blind, deaf, and dumb members; despite their difficulties in communicating with one another, each uses their senses that are unimpaired to work together and accomplish the tasks that constitute an ostensibly “normal” life. In a world filled with constant noise and conflict, Dong Xi’s silent family serves as a source of inspiration.

　　In Record of Regret, Zeng Guangxian misses his chance with a girl who courageously declares her love for him, all because of his own fear and ignorance. Driven by physical desire and impulses, he climbs into the room of the girl that he admires. Despite not even touching her, he is accused of rape. After ten years in prison, he discovers love on a spiritual level. Once released from prison, he actively takes responsibility for his previous wrongs, losing his chance at love in the process. Over the thirty years that pass from his initial repression of physical impulses to his eventual embrace of them, Zeng Guangxian always seems to make the wrong choice. As a result, he is constantly filled with regret, and he comes to believe that the best choice is the one he hasn’t made.

　　In Dong Xi’s recent work Tampering with Fate, Wang Changchi goes to the city to work after being refused to go to college even his score national college entrance exam is qualified. His dignity is whittled down bit by bit. He has a son, Wang Dazhi, and for the sake of the boy’s future, he surreptitiously gives Wang Dazhi to a wealthy family, becoming a “shadow father.” Wang Dazhi’s adoptive parents change his name to Lin Fangsheng. After graduating from college, Lin Fangsheng becomes a police officer. He reopens a certain case, one that mentions a drowned man named Wang Changchi, and he suddenly realizes that the man was his birth father. Lin Fangsheng is caught in a dilemma: should he destroy the evidence, or should he bring his adoptive father to justice? The novel uses black humor to depict the polarization of modern-day China. Dong Xi’s sympathy for his characters makes clear his sense of literary responsibility, as well as his sense of social responsibility.