美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Nobel Of The Heart' Is The Real Prize For Author Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Every year when it's time to give out the Nobel Prize for literature, British bookies lay odds¹ on who might win. And every year, Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong'o is viewed as a contender. His work includes novels and plays and essays. But the first thing he ever wrote was a short story. And it's included in a new collection ranging from the 1960s to the present. He told NPR's Lynn Neary it's a kind of literary autobiography².

LYNN NEARY, BYLINE³: When Ngugi Wa Thiong'o was university student in Uganda in the early 1960s, he was a big fan of the school's literary magazine. One day, he met one of the writers he admired and was so star-struck, he didn't know what to do.

NGUGI WA THIONG'O: So I just blurted⁴ out, I have written a short story. Would you like to look at it? And he said, yes, do you have it? And, of course, I did not have it with me, simply because I had not written one. That night, I went back to my dorm and had to concoct⁵ something called a story (laughter).

NEARY: Beginning with that story, this new collection has a narrative⁶ arc that takes the reader from the sometimes harsh reality of village life through the changes that came with the end of colonial rule. A number of the stories were written just after Kenya won its independence from Britain. It was a time of great hope, which Ngugi says turned out to be a false hope for many.

NGUGI: The coming of independence became a promise of better life to come for everybody - not just for a few people but for everybody. But after independence, I began to see that there was a kind of difference in expectation and reality. And I tried to capture that in my short stories.

NEARY: In the story which gives this collection its name, "Minutes Of Glory," Ngugi tells of a young woman who leaves her village to become a barmaid in one of the many beer halls that sprang up in post-colonial Kenya. Things do not go well for her, and at one point, she yearns⁷ to return home but cannot. In this passage, Ngugi evokes⁸ the sadness of what has been lost, a connection to the land.

NGUGI: (Reading) She was part of a generation which will never again be one with the soil, the crops, the wind and the moon. Not for them, that whispering in dark hedges. Not for her, that dance and love-making under the glare of the moon, with the hills of Tumutumu rising to touch the sky.

NEARY: Ngugi's writing was often critical of post-colonial Kenya and its rulers. But he says it was not until he wrote a play - not in English but in his native language - that he was seen as a threat and arrested.

NGUGI: The first play that I write in Gikuyu, my mother tongue, I am put in a maximum-security prison - not by a colonial government but by an African government. And that contradiction was so strong, and the questions that it raised became very, very important to me. And I realized the oppressor always - the first thing they do is take away the language of the oppressed.

NEARY: While in prison, Ngugi wrote "Devil On The Cross," his first novel in Gikuyu. Famously, the entire book was written on toilet paper.

NGUGI: But I keep on joking that the paper we are given as toilet paper was not the soft kind we find on television. So it's a bit hard, a bit rough, so to speak, but a very good writing material. It held the pen very well.

NEARY: After getting out of prison, Ngugi went into exile, living first in England and then in the United States. Although he has not lived in Kenya for many years, he still writes about it. The most recent stories in this collection are both set there. Living in exile, he says, is a different kind of prison.

NGUGI: Prison is like internal exile, and exile is like external prison. And both present the same challenges. How do you connect with the people from whom we are separated? So in prison, I wrote the novel "Devil On The Cross." In exile, I tried to do the same thing - to try to connect with Kenya, with Africa through my imagination, through my writing.

NEARY: As for that elusive⁹ Nobel Prize, well, Ngugi finds it more amusing than anything. He is more interested in what he calls the Nobel of the heart.

NGUGI: When I go to a place and I meet a person and they tell me, your novel or your short story impacted my life, that's a very special moment when, as a writer I feel, my God, it was worth it. It's what I call the Nobel of the heart, and I really appreciate that one. And the beauty of the Nobel of the heart is that every writer can have it, yeah (laughter).

NEARY: Then again, maybe this year, he will get that other Nobel. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARMS AND SLEEPERS' "CAN YOU")

1 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

2 autobiography   

n.自传

参考例句：

• He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
• His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 blurted   

v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She blurted it out before I could stop her. 我还没来得及制止，她已脱口而出。
• He blurted out the truth, that he committed the crime. 他不慎说出了真相，说是他犯了那个罪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 concoct   

v.调合，制造

参考例句：

• I gave her a tip on how to concoct a new kind of soup.我教她配制一种新汤的诀窍。
• I began to concoct explanations of my own.我开始思考自己的解释。

6 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

7 yearns   

渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Every man yearns for sympathy in sorrow. 每个遇到不幸的人都渴望得到同情。
• What I dread is to get into a rut. One yearns for freshness of thought and ideas. 我害怕的就是墨守成规。人总是向往新思想和新观念的。

8 evokes   

产生，引起，唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The film evokes chilling reminders of the war. 这部电影使人们回忆起战争的可怕场景。
• Each type evokes antibodies which protect against the homologous. 每一种类型都能产生抗同种病毒的抗体。

9 elusive   

adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的

参考例句：

• Try to catch the elusive charm of the original in translation.翻译时设法把握住原文中难以捉摸的风韵。
• Interpol have searched all the corners of the earth for the elusive hijackers.国际刑警组织已在世界各地搜查在逃的飞机劫持者。