ChimamandaAdichie_单一故事的危险性【中英文对照】

1.I’m a storyteller.
我是个说书之人。
2.And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call “the danger of the single story.”
在这里，我想和大家分享一些我本人的故事， 一些关于所谓的“单一故事的危险性”的经历。
3.I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria.
我成长在尼日利亚东部的一所大学校园里。
4.My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth.
我母亲常说我从两岁起就开始读书， 不过我觉得“四岁起”比较接近事实。
5.So I was an early reader. And what I read were British and American children’s books.
所以我从小就开始读书， 读的是英国和美国的儿童书籍。
6.I was also an early writer.
我也是从小就开始写作。
7.And when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read,
当我在七岁那年 开始强迫我可怜的母亲阅读我用铅笔写好的故事 外加上蜡笔描绘的插图时，
8.I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading.
我所写的故事正如我所读到的故事那般。
9.All my characters were white and blue-eyed.
我故事里的人物们都是白皮肤、蓝眼睛的，
10.They played in the snow.
常在雪中嬉戏，
11.They ate apples.
吃着苹果。
12.(Laughter) And they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out.
（笑声） 而且他们经常讨论天气， 讨论太阳出来时，一切都多么美好。
13.(Laughter) Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria.
（笑声） 我一直写着这样故事，虽然说我当时住在尼日利亚，
14.I had never been outside Nigeria.
并且从来没有出过国。
15.We didn’t have snow. We ate mangoes.
虽然说我们从来没见过雪；虽然说我们实际上只能吃到芒果；
16.And we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.
虽然说我们从不讨论天气 因为根本没这个必要。
17.My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer.
我故事里的人物们也常喝姜汁啤酒， 因为我所读的那些英国书中的人物们 常喝姜汁啤酒，
18.Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was.
虽然说我当时完全不知道姜汁啤酒是什么东西。
19.(Laughter) And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate desire to taste ginger beer.
（笑声） 事隔多年，我一直都怀揣着一个深切的渴望 想尝尝姜汁啤酒的味道。
20.But that is another story.
不过这要另当别论了。
21.What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children.
这一切所表明的 正是在一个个的故事面前 我们是何等得脆弱，何等得易受影响， 尤其当我们还是孩子的时候。
22.Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books, by their very nature, had to have foreigners in them,
因为我当时读的所有书中 只有外国人物， 我因而坚信：书要想被称为书， 就必须有外国人在里面，
23.and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.
就必须是关于 我无法亲身体验的事情。
24.Now, things changed when I discovered African books.
而这一切都在我接触了非洲书籍之后发生了改变。
25.There weren’t many of them available. And they weren’t quite as easy to find as the foreign books.
当时非洲书并不多， 而且它们也不像国外书籍那样好找。
26.But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature.
不过因为Chinua Achebe和Camara Laye之类的作家， 我思维中对于文学的概念 产生了质的改变。
27.I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature.
我意识到像我这样的人── 有着巧克力般的肤色 和永远无法梳成马尾辫的蜷曲头发的女孩子们── 也可以出现在文学作品中的。
28.I started to write about things I recognized.
我开始撰写我所熟知的事物。
29.Now, I loved those American and British books I read.
但这并不是说我不喜爱那些美国和英国书籍，
30.They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me.
恰恰相反，那些书籍激发了我的想象力，为我开启了新的世界。
31.But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature.
但随之而来的后果就是 我不知道原来像我这样的人 也是可以存在于文学作品之中的。
32.So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are.
而与非洲作家的结缘 则是将我从对于书籍的单一故事(认识)中 拯救了出来。
33.I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family.
我来自一个传统的尼日利亚中产家庭。
34.My father was a professor.
我的父亲是一名教授，
35.My mother was an administrator.
我的母亲是一名大学管理员。
36.And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages.
因此我们和很多其他家庭一样 都会从附近的村庄中雇佣一些帮手来打理家事。
37.So the year I turned eight we got a new house boy.
在我八岁那一年，我们家招来了一位新的男仆。
38.His name was Fide.
他的名字叫做Fide。
39.The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor.
我父亲只告诉我们说， Fide是来自一个非常穷苦的家庭。
40.My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family.
我的母亲会时不时地将山芋、大米 还有我们穿旧的衣服送到他的家里。
41.And when I didn’t finish my dinner my mother would say, “Finish your food! Don’t you know? People like Fide’s family have nothing.”
每当我剩下晚饭的时候，我的母亲就会说： “吃干净你的食物！难道你不知道嘛？像Fide家这样的人可是一无所有的。”
42.So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family.
因此我对Fide的家人充满了怜悯。
43.Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit.
后来的一个星期六，我们去Fide的村庄拜访，
44.And his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket, made of dyed raffia, that his brother had made.
她的母亲向我们展示了一个精美别致的草篮── 是Fide的哥哥用染过色的酒椰叶编织的。
45.I was startled.
我当时完全被震惊了。
46.It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something.
我从来没有想过Fide的家人 居然有亲手制造东西的才能。
47.All I had heard about them is how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.
在那之前，我对Fide家唯一的了解就是他们是何等的穷苦， 正因为如此，他们在我脑中的印象 只是一个字──“穷”。
48.Their poverty was my single story of them.
他们的贫穷是我赐予他们的单一故事。
49.Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States.
多年之后，在我离开尼日利亚前往美国读大学的时候， 我又想到了这件事。
50.I was 19.
我那时19岁。
51.My American roommate was shocked by me.
我的美国室友当时完全对我感到十分惊讶了。
52.She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language.
她问我是从哪里学得讲一口如此流利的英语， 而当我告知她尼日利亚刚巧是以英语作为官方语言的时候， 她的脸上则是写满了茫然。
53.She asked if she could listed to what she called my “tribal music,”
她问我是否可以给她听听她所谓的“部落音乐”。
54.and was consequently very dissapointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey.
可想而知，当我拿出玛丽亚凯莉的磁带时， 她是何等的失望。
55.(Laughter) She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove.
（笑声） 她断定我不知道如何使用 电炉。
56.What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me.
我猛然意识到：在她见到我之间， 她就已经对我充满了怜悯之心。
57.Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning, pity.
她对我这个非洲人的预设心态 是一种充满施恩与好意的怜悯之情。
58.My roommate had a single story of Africa.
我那位室友的脑中有一个关与非洲的单一故事。
59.A single story of catastrophe.
一个充满了灾难的单一故事。
60.In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her, in any way.
在这个单一故事中，非洲人是完全没有可能 在任何方面和她有所相似的；
61.No possibility of feelings more complex than pity.
没有可能接受到比怜悯更复杂的感情；
62.No possibility of a connection as human equals.
没有可能以一个平等的人类的身份与她沟通。
63.I must say that before I went to the U.S. I didn’t consciously identify as African.
我不得不强调，在我前往美国之前， 我从来没有有意识地把自己当作个非洲人。
64.But in the U.S. whenever Africa came up people turned to me.
但在美国的时候，每当人们提到“非洲”时，大家都回转向我，
65.Never mind that I knew nothing about places like Namibia.
虽然说我对纳米比亚之类的地方一无所知。
66.But I did come to embrace this new identity.
但我渐渐的开始接受这个新的身份。
67.And in many ways I think of myself now as African.
现在很多时候我都是把自己当作一个非洲人来看待。
68.Although I still get quite irritable when Africa is referred to as a country.
不过当人们把非洲当作一个国家来讨论的时候， 我还是觉得挺反感的。
69.The most recent example being my otherwise wonderful flight from Lagos two days ago, in which there was an announcement on the Virgin flight
最近的一次例子就发生在两天前， 我从拉各斯搭乘航班。旅程原本相当愉快， 直到广播里开始介绍在“印度、非洲以及其他国家”
70.about the charity work in “India, Africa and other countries.”
所进行的慈善事业。
71.(Laughter) So after I had spent some years in the U.S. as an African, I began to understand my roommate’s response to me.
（笑声） 当我以一名非洲人的身份在美国度过几年之后， 我开始理解我那位室友当时对我的反应。
72.If I had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of
如果我不是在尼日利亚长大，如果我对非洲的一切认识 都来自于大众流行的影像， 我相信我眼中的非洲也同样是充满了
73.beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves,
美丽的地貌、美丽的动物、 以及一群难以理解的人们 进行着毫无意义的战争、死于艾滋和贫穷、 无法为自己辩护
74.and waiting to be saved, by a kind, white foreigner.
并且等待着一位慈悲的、 白种的外国人的救赎。
75.I would see Africans in the same way that I, as a child, had seen Fide’s family.
我看待非洲的方式将会和我儿时 看待Fide一家的方式是一样的。
76.This single story of Africa ultimately comes, I think, from Western literature.
我认为，关于非洲的这个单一故事从根本上来自于西方的文学。
77.Now, here is a quote from the writing  of a London merchant called John Locke, who sailed to west Africa in 1561, and kept a fascinating account of his voyage.
这是来自伦敦商人John Locke的一段话。 他在1561年的时候 曾游历非洲西部， 并且为他的航行做了番很有趣的记录。
78.After referring to the black Africans as “beasts who have no houses,”
他先是把黑色的非洲人称为 “没有房子的野兽”，
79.he writes, “They are also people without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts.”
随后又写到：“他们也是一群无头脑的人， 他们的嘴和眼睛都长在了他们的胸口上。”
80.Now, I’ve laughed every time I’ve read this.
我每次读到这一段的时候，都不禁大笑起来。
81.And one must admire the imagination of John Locke.
John Locke的想象力真的是让人敬佩。
82.But what is important about his writing is that it represents the beginning of a tradition of telling African stories in the West.
但关于他这段作品极其重要的一点是 它昭示着西方社会讲述非洲故事 的一个传统。
83.A tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness, of people who, in the words of the wonderful poet,
在这个传统中，撒哈拉以南的非洲充满了消极、 差异以及黑暗， 是伟大的诗人Rudyard Kipling笔下
84.Rudyard Kipling, are “half devil, half child.”
所形容的“半恶魔、半孩童” 的奇异人种。
85.And so I began to realize that my American roommate must have, throughout her life, seen and heard different versions of this single story,
正因此，我开始意识到我的那位美国室友 一定在她成长的过程中 看过并且听过关于这个单一故事的 不同版本，
86.as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not “authentically African.”
就如同之前一位 曾经批判我的小说缺乏“真实的非洲感”的教授一样。
87.Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places.
话说我倒是甘愿承认我的小说 有几处写的不好的地方， 有几处败笔。
88.But I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity.
但我很难相像我的小说 竟然会缺乏“真实的非洲感”。
89.In fact I did not know what African authenticity was.
事实上，我甚至不知道“真实的非洲感” 到底是个什么东西。
90.The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man.
那位教授跟我说我书中的人物 都和他太接近了， 都是受过教育的中产人物。
91.My characters drove cars.
我的人物会开车。
92.They were not starving.
他们没有受到饥饿的困扰。
93.Therefore they were not authentically African.
正因此，他们缺少了真实的非洲感。
94.But I must quickly add that I too am just as guilty in the question of the single story.
我在这里不得不指出，我本人 也常常被单一的故事蒙蔽双眼。
95.A few years ago, I visited Mexico from the U.S.
几年前，我从美国探访墨西哥。
96.The political climate in the U.S. at the time, was tense.
当时美国的政治气候比较紧张。
97.And there were debates going on about immigration.
关于移民的辩论一直在进行着。
98.And, as often happens in America, immigration became synonymous with Mexicans.
而在美国，“移民”和“墨西哥人” 常常被当作同义词来使用。
99.There were endless stories of Mexicans as people who were fleecing the healthcare system, sneaking across the border, being arrested at the border, that sort of thing.
关于墨西哥人的故事是源源不绝， 讲的都是 欺诈医疗系统、 偷渡边境、 在边境被捕之类的事情。
100.I remember walking around on my first day in Guadalajara, watching the people going to work, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace,
我还记得当我到达瓜达拉哈拉(墨西哥西部一城市)的第一天， 看着人们前往工作， 在市集上吃着墨西哥卷、
101.smoking, laughing.
抽着烟、大笑着。
102.I remember first feeling slight surprise.
我记得我刚看到这一切时是何等的惊讶，
103.And then I was overwhelmed with shame.
但随后我的心中便充满了羞耻感。
104.I realized that I had been so immersed in the media coverage of Mexicans that they had become one thing in my mind, the abject immigrant.
我意识到我当时完全被沉浸在 媒体上关于墨西哥人的报道， 以致于他们在我的脑中幻化成一个单一的个体── 卑贱的移民。
105.I had bought into the single story of Mexicans and I could not have been more ashamed of myself.
我完全相信了关于墨西哥人的单一故事， 对此我感到无比的羞愧。
106.So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.
这就是创造单一故事的经过， 将一群人一遍又一遍地 呈现为一个事物，并且只是一个事物， 时间久了 他们就变成了那个食物。
107.It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power.
而说到单一的故事， 就自然而然地要讲到权力这个问题。
108.There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is “nkali.”
每当我想到这个世界的权力结构的时候， 我都会想起一个伊博语中的单词， 叫做“nkali”。
109.It’s a noun that loosely translates to “to be greater than another.”
它是一个名词，可以在大意上被翻译成 “比另一个人强大”。
110.Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali.
就如同我们的经济和政治界一样， 我们所讲的故事也是建立在 nkali的原则上的。
111.How they are told, who tells them, when they’re told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.
这些故事是怎样被讲述的、由谁来讲述、 何时被讲述、有多少故事被讲述， 这一切都取决于权力。
112.Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.
所谓的权力，不单单是讲述一个关于别人的故事的能力， 而是将那个故事转变为关于那个人的决定性故事。
113.The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story,
巴勒斯坦诗人Mourid Barghouti曾经写到： 如果你想剥夺一群人的权利， 最简单的办法就是讲述一个关于他们的故事，
114.and to start with, “secondly.”
并且从“第二点”开始讲起。
115.Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have and entirely different story.
从印第安土著人的弓箭讲起， 而不是英国人的侵占， 整个故事将变得完全不同。
116.Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story.
讲述一个故事， 从非洲国家的失败谈起， 而不是殖民者瓜分创建这些非洲国家的过程， 整个故事将变得完全不同。