Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story
Chimamanda||||||||
Chimamanda|Ngozi|Adichie||||||
Chimamanda|Ngozi|Adichie||||||
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Die Gefahr einer einzigen Geschichte
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Ο κίνδυνος μιας και μόνο ιστορίας
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: El peligro de una historia única
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie : le danger d'une histoire unique
チママンダ・ンゴズィ・アディチエ：ひとつの物語の危険性
치마만다 응고지 아디치에: 단일 스토리의 위험성
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Niebezpieczeństwo pojedynczej historii
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: O perigo de uma história única
Чимаманда Нгози Адичи: Опасность одной истории
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Tek bir hikayenin tehlikesi
Чімаманда Нгозі Адічі: Небезпека однієї історії
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie：单一故事的危险
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie：單一故事的危險
I’m a storyteller.
And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single story.
|||||||||||||||||die|Gefahr|der|||
|||||сказати||||||про|||||||||||
E gostaria de vos contar algumas histórias pessoais sobre aquilo a que gosto de chamar "o perigo da história única".
" I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria.
||||||||східній|
||||||||eastern|
My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth.
||||||||dem|||||||||||||
我母亲说我两岁就开始读书，尽管我认为四岁可能更接近事实。
So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and American children’s books.
I was also an early writer, 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, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out.
||||||||||||||||||||||蜡笔|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||Kreide|||||||verpflichtet|lesen||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||sprachen|||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||red fruit||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||pastelli a cera|illustrazioni a cera||||||obbligata a||||||||||||||||||||azzurri||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||comencé|||||||||||||crayón||||||||||||||||||||||t|||||ojos|||||||||||hablaba|||||clima||||||||||
我也是一位早期作家，当我大约七岁时开始用铅笔和蜡笔插图写故事时，我可怜的母亲必须阅读这些故事，我写的正是我正在读的故事类型：我所有的人物他们是白色的，蓝眼睛的，他们在雪地里玩耍，他们吃苹果，他们谈论了很多关于天气的事情，太阳出来了是多么可爱。
(Laughter) Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria.
|||trotz|||||||
risa||||||||||
I had never been outside Nigeria.
We didn’t have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.
||||||manghi|||||||||||||
我们没有下雪，我们吃芒果，我们从不谈论天气，因为没有必要。
My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer.
|||||||||||||||||||zenzero|
我的角色也喝了很多姜汁啤酒，因为我读过的英国书籍中的角色喝了姜汁啤酒。
Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was.
(Laughter) And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate desire to taste ginger beer.
||||||||||intense|||||
||||||||||desiderio disperato|||||
|||||después||||||||||
But that is another story.
||||historia
What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children.
||证明|||||易受影响|||||||||||||
|||||||beeindruckbar|||||||||||||
|||||||influenzabili|||||||||||||
qué|||||||susceptibles|||||||ante|de|||||
O que isto demonstra, penso eu, é o quão impressionáveis e vulneráveis somos perante uma história, especialmente quando somos crianças.
我认为，这表明我们在面对故事时是多么容易受影响和脆弱，尤其是作为孩子。
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 and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.
||||||||||||||me había vuelto|convencido|||||||||||||||||||||||||
因为我读过的都是外来人物的书，所以我确信书籍本质上一定有外来人，而且一定是关于我个人无法认同的事物。
Things changed when I discovered African books.
||||descubrí||
There weren’t many of them available, and they weren’t quite as easy to find as the foreign books.
|||||||||bastante||||||||
可用的书并不多，而且不像外国书那么容易找到。
But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature.
|||||奇努阿|阿契贝||卡马拉|拉耶|||||||||||
||||||||||||experienced||cognitive||||||
|||||Chinua Achebe|Achebe||Camara Laye|Laye|||||||||||
|||||Chinua|||Laye|Laye|||||||||||
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.
||||||||||||||卷曲的|||||马尾辫|||||
||||||||||||||ricci|||||code a coda|||||
|me di cuenta|||||||||||||rizado|||||coletas|||||
我发现，像我这样皮肤巧克力色、头发卷成马尾辫的女孩，也可以存在于文学中。
I started to write about things I recognized.
|||||||reconocidas
我开始写我认识的事情。
Now, I loved those American and British books I read.
|||||||||leí
现在，我喜欢读过的美国和英国书籍。
They stirred my imagination.
|weckten||
|hanno stimolato||
|despertaron||
They opened up new worlds for me.
But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature.
||non intenzionale|||||||||||||||
||no intencionada|||||||||||||||
但意想不到的后果是，我不知道像我这样的人可以存在于文学中。
So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are.
所以，非洲作家的发现对我来说是这样的：它让我不再有关于书籍的单一故事。
I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family.
|||||||nigeriana|
Venho de uma família nigeriana convencional, de classe média.
My father was a professor.
My mother was an administrator.
||||我母亲是管理员。
||||school official
||||amministratrice
A minha mãe era administradora.
And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages.
||||||||||||||a menudo|||||pueblos
Por isso, tínhamos, como era habitual, empregadas domésticas, que vinham muitas vezes de aldeias rurais próximas.
So the year I turned eight we got a new house boy.
Así que el año que cumplí ocho tuvimos un nuevo chico de la casa.
所以在我八岁那年，我们有了一个新的男仆。
His name was Fide.
|||菲德
|||Fide
|||Fide
The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor.
关于他，我母亲唯一告诉我们的是，他的家庭非常贫穷。
My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family.
|||igname|||||||||
|||ñames|||||||||
And when I didn’t finish my dinner my mother would say, "Finish your food!
当我没吃完晚饭时，妈妈会说：“把饭吃完吧！
Don’t you know?
你不知道吗？
People like Fide’s family have nothing.
||菲德的|||
||la famiglia di Fide|||
||Fide|||
像菲德一家这样的人什么都没有。
" So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family.
||||Mitleid|||
||||compassione|||
|||||||familia
Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made.
|||||||||||||||||||||染色的|拉菲草|||||
||||||||||||||||||||||palm leaf fiber|||||
|||||||||||||||||decorata con motivi|cesta|||raffia tinta|raffia colorata|||||
|||||||||||||mostró||||||||teñida|raffia|||||
Depois, num sábado, fomos visitar a sua aldeia e a sua mãe mostrou-nos um cesto com um bonito padrão feito de ráfia tingida que o seu irmão tinha feito.
然后一个星期六，我们去他的村庄拜访，他的母亲向我们展示了他哥哥用染色拉菲草制成的图案精美的篮子。
I was startled.
||überrascht
||surprised or shocked
||sorpreso
||sorprendido
It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something.
|||gekommen|||||||||||
我没想到他家里的任何人都能真正做出一些东西。
All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.
我所听到的关于他们的一切都是他们有多么贫穷，所以我不可能把他们看作除了贫穷之外的任何其他人。
Their poverty was my single story of them.
Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States.
|||||||||Nigeria||||||||
I was 19.
My American roommate was shocked by me.
||||sorprendido||
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.
Perguntou-me onde é que eu tinha aprendido a falar inglês tão bem e ficou confusa quando lhe respondi que, por acaso, a Nigéria tinha o inglês como língua oficial.
She asked if she could listen to what she called my "tribal music,"and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey.
|||||||||||部落的|||||||||||||玛丽亚·凯莉|玛丽亚·凯莉
||||||||||||||||||||제출한|||||
|||||||||||musica tribale|||||||||||||Mariah Carey|Mariah Carey
|||||||||||||||||||||||||Carey
Perguntou-me se podia ouvir aquilo a que chamava a minha "música tribal" e, consequentemente, ficou muito desiludida quando lhe mostrei a minha cassete da Mariah Carey.
(Laughter) She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove.
||||||||||||estufa
(Rires) Elle a supposé que je ne savais pas me servir d'un fourneau.
What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me.
|me impresionó||||||||||||||
O que me impressionou foi isto: Ela tinha sentido pena de mim mesmo antes de me ver.
Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity.
||||||||||||居高临下|||
||||||||||||herablassende|||Mitleid
||||||||||||condescending|||
||||||||||||paternalistica|||pietà
||||||||||||paternalista||bienintencionada|
My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe.
||||||||||||catastrofe
In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.
I must say that before I went to the U.S.
|||||||||U(1)|
I didn’t consciously identify as African.
But in the U.S.
whenever Africa came up people turned to me.
cada vez que|||||||
Sempre que se falava de África, as pessoas voltavam-se para mim.
Never mind that I knew nothing about places like Namibia.
|||||||||纳米比亚
Não importa que eu não soubesse nada sobre lugares como a Namíbia.
But I did come to embrace this new identity, and in many ways I think of myself now as African.
|||verbo auxiliar||abrazar||||||||||||||
Mais j'ai fini par accepter cette nouvelle identité et, à bien des égards, je me considère aujourd'hui comme un Africain.
Although I still get quite irritable when Africa is referred to as a country, the most recent example being my otherwise wonderful flight from Lagos two days ago, in which there was an announcement on the Virgin flight about the charity work in "India, Africa and other countries.
|||||annoyed||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||irritabile||||||||||||||||||||||||||||annuncio|||||||opera di beneficenza|||||||
||||||||||||||||||||de otra manera|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L'exemple le plus récent est celui de mon vol de Lagos, il y a deux jours, par ailleurs merveilleux, au cours duquel une annonce a été faite sur le vol Virgin à propos des œuvres caritatives en "Inde, en Afrique et dans d'autres pays".
Хотя меня до сих пор раздражает, когда Африку называют страной. Самый свежий пример - мой замечательный в остальном полет из Лагоса два дня назад, когда на рейсе Virgin было объявление о благотворительной деятельности в "Индии, Африке и других странах".
" (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.
||||||||室友的|||
||||||||compagno di stanza|||
||||||||compañero de cuarto|||
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 beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||unverständlich||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||continent or country|||||||||||||||||||||||passively awaiting||||||||
||||||||||||||||||immagini||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I would see Africans in the same way that I, as a child, had seen Fide’s family.
This single story of Africa ultimately comes, I think, from Western literature.
||||||||in my opinion|||
|||||||||||literatura
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.
|||||||||||mercante|||Locke (1)||||||||||||||
|||||||||||comerciante|llamado||Locke||||||||||||||
After referring to the black Africans as "beasts who have no houses," he writes, "They are also people without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||petto
Tras referirse a los negros africanos como "bestias que no tienen casa", escribe: "También son personas sin cabeza, que tienen la boca y los ojos en el pecho.
Après avoir qualifié les Africains noirs de "bêtes qui n'ont pas de maison", écrit-il, "Ce sont aussi des gens sans tête, ayant la bouche et les yeux dans la poitrine.
Now, I’ve laughed every time I’ve read this.
And one must admire the imagination of John Locke.
||should||||||
|||ammirare|||||
But what is important about his writing is that it represents the beginning of a tradition of telling African stories in the West: 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 Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half child.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||吉卜林||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Rudyard Kipling|Kipling|||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Rudyard|Kipling|||||
And so I began to realize that my American roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different versions of this single story, as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not "authentically African.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||autenticamente|
||||||||||||a lo largo de||||||||||||||||quien||||||||||
C'est ainsi que j'ai commencé à réaliser que ma colocataire américaine avait dû, tout au long de sa vie, voir et entendre différentes versions de cette même histoire, tout comme un professeur qui m'a dit un jour que mon roman n'était pas "authentiquement africain".
E assim comecei a perceber que a minha colega de quarto americana deve ter visto e ouvido, ao longo da sua vida, diferentes versões desta única história, tal como um professor, que uma vez me disse que o meu romance não era "autenticamente africano".
" 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, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity.
|||||zu|behaupten||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||argue||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||disposto||sostenere||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||sostener||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"Ahora bien, yo estaba dispuesto a sostener que había una serie de cosas que no funcionaban en la novela, que había fracasado en varios aspectos, pero no me había imaginado que había fracasado a la hora de lograr algo llamado autenticidad africana.
" J'étais tout à fait disposé à soutenir qu'il y avait un certain nombre de choses qui n'allaient pas dans le roman, qu'il avait échoué dans un certain nombre de domaines, mais je n'avais pas vraiment imaginé qu'il avait échoué à atteindre ce que l'on appelle l'authenticité africaine.
In fact I did not know what African authenticity was.
The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man.
||||||personajes|||||||||||
My characters drove cars.They were not starving.
Therefore they were not authentically African.
por lo tanto|||||africana
But I must quickly add that I too am just as guilty in the question of the single story.
Mais je dois rapidement ajouter que je suis tout aussi coupable en ce qui concerne la question de l'histoire unique.
Mas devo acrescentar rapidamente que também eu sou igualmente culpado na questão da história única.
A few years ago, I visited Mexico from the U.S.
The political climate in the U.S.
at the time was tense, and there were debates going on about immigration.
And, as often happens in America, immigration became synonymous with Mexicans.
||||||||||messicani
||||||||||mexicanos
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.
||||||||||剥削||||偷偷越境||||||||||||
||||||||||exploiting||||||||||||||||
||||||||||sfruttando||||attraversando di nascosto||||||||||||
||||||||||estafando||||cruzando||||||||||||
Había un sinfín de historias de mexicanos como personas que estaban esquilmando el sistema sanitario, colándose por la frontera, siendo detenidos en la frontera, ese tipo de cosas.
I remember walking around on my first day in Guadalajara, watching the people going to work, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace, smoking, laughing.
|||||||||瓜达拉哈拉|||||||||玉米饼|||||
|||||||||Guadalajara|||||||||tortillas|||mercato||
|recuerdo|||||||||||||||||tortillas|||||
Je me souviens de m'être promenée le premier jour à Guadalajara, en regardant les gens aller au travail, rouler des tortillas sur la place du marché, fumer, rire.
I remember first feeling slight surprise.
Recuerdo que primero sentí una ligera sorpresa.
And then I was overwhelmed with shame.
И тут меня захлестнул стыд.
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.
||||||||||||||||||||||||卑微的|
||||||||||||||||||||||||abscheuliche|
|||||||||||coverage|||||||||||||Hopelessly degraded|
||||||||||||||||||||||||miserabile|
||||||||||||||||||||||||abyecto|
Je me suis rendu compte que j'avais été tellement immergé dans la couverture médiatique des Mexicains qu'ils étaient devenus une chose dans mon esprit, l'immigrant abject.
Apercebi-me de que tinha estado tão imerso na cobertura mediática dos mexicanos que eles se tinham tornado uma coisa só na minha mente, o imigrante abjeto.
I had bought into the single story of Mexicans and I could not have been more ashamed of myself.
||gekauft||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||ashamed||
||||||||||||||||vergognato||
||comprado||||||||||||||avergonzado||
Me había tragado el cuento único de los mexicanos y no podía estar más avergonzada de mí misma.
J'avais adhéré à l'histoire unique des Mexicains et je n'aurais pas pu avoir plus honte.
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.
It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power.
|||||sobre|||||||
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.
|||||伊博语|||||||||||||||||||恩卡利
|||||Igbo word|||||||||||||||||||
|||||Igbo|||||||||||||||||||superiorità
||||||||||||||||||||||||nkali
" It’s a noun that loosely translates to "to be greater than another.
|||||si traduce||||||
" Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali: How they are told, who tells them, when they’re told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.
" Tout comme nos mondes économique et politique, les histoires sont également définies par le principe du nkali : la manière dont elles sont racontées, qui les raconte, quand elles sont racontées, combien d'histoires sont racontées, dépendent réellement du pouvoir.
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.
||||||||||||||||||entscheidende||||
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 and to start with, "secondly.
|||||||||||剥夺||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||entziehen||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||deprive of property||||||||||||||||||secondly
|||Mourid Barghouti|Barghouti|||||||dispossederli||||modo più semplice||||||||||||||
||||Barghouti|||||||desposeer||||||||||||||||||
Le poète palestinien Mourid Barghouti écrit que si l'on veut déposséder un peuple, la façon la plus simple de le faire est de raconter son histoire et de commencer par "deuxièmement".
O poeta palestiniano Mourid Barghouti escreve que, se quisermos desapossar um povo, a forma mais simples de o fazer é contar a sua história e começar por "em segundo lugar".
" Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story.
|||||le frecce|||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||y||||||
" Comece a história com as flechas dos nativos americanos, e não com a chegada dos britânicos, e terá uma história completamente diferente.
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.
Commencez l'histoire par l'échec de l'État africain, et non par la création coloniale de l'État africain, et vous obtiendrez une histoire totalement différente.
I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel.
||||||||||||||||||||||abuseri|||||||
J'ai récemment pris la parole dans une université où un étudiant m'a dit qu'il était vraiment dommage que les hommes nigérians soient des agresseurs physiques comme le père de mon roman.
Недавно я выступал в университете, и одна из студенток сказала мне, что очень жаль, что нигерийские мужчины подвергаются физическому насилию, как отец героя моего романа.
I told him that I had just read a novel called American Psycho -- (Laughter) -- and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.
||||||||||||||||||||안타까운 일||||||
||||||||||||Psycho|||||||||||||seriali|assassini seriali
Je lui ai dit que je venais de lire un roman intitulé American Psycho -- (Rires) -- et que c'était une telle honte que les jeunes Américains soient des meurtriers en série.
(Laughter) (Applause) Now, obviously I said this in a fit of mild irritation.
|||||||in|einem||von|leichter|
|||||dije|||||||
(Risas) (Aplausos) Ahora, obviamente dije esto en un ataque de irritación leve.
(Rires) (Applaudissements) Il est évident que j'ai dit cela sous le coup d'une légère irritation.
(Risos) (Aplausos) Obviamente, disse isto num momento de ligeira irritação.
(Смех) (Аплодисменты) Итак, очевидно, что я сказал это в порыве легкого раздражения.
(Laughter)
But it would never have occurred to me to think that just because I had read a novel in which a character was a serial killer that he was somehow representative of all Americans.
Mais il ne me serait jamais venu à l'esprit de penser que parce que j'avais lu un roman dans lequel un personnage était un tueur en série, il était en quelque sorte représentatif de tous les Américains.
This is not because I am a better person than that student, but because of America’s cultural and economic power, I had many stories of America.
I had read Tyler and Updike and Steinbeck and Gaitskill.
|||Tyler||Updike||Steinbeck||Gaitskill
|||Tyler||Updike||Steinbeck||Gaitskill
I did not have a single story of America.
When I learned, some years ago, that writers were expected to have had really unhappy childhoods to be successful, I began to think about how I could invent horrible things my parents had done to me.
|||||||||||||||infanzie||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||se esperaba||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lorsque j'ai appris, il y a quelques années, que les écrivains étaient censés avoir eu une enfance très malheureuse pour réussir, j'ai commencé à réfléchir à la manière dont je pourrais inventer les choses horribles que mes parents m'avaient faites.
(Laughter) But the truth is that I had a very happy childhood, full of laughter and love, in a very close-knit family.
||||||||||||||||||||molto unita|unita|
||||||||||||||||||||unida|unida|
But I also had grandfathers who died in refugee camps.
||||||||refugiados|
Mais j'ai aussi eu des grands-pères qui sont morts dans des camps de réfugiés.
My cousin Polle died because he could not get adequate healthcare.
||波尔||||||||
||Polle|||||||adeguata|
||Polle||||||||
One of my closest friends, Okoloma, died in a plane crash because our fire trucks did not have water.
|||||Okoloma|||||||||autopompe||||
|||||Okoloma|||||||||||||
Una de mis mejores amigas, Okoloma, murió en un accidente aéreo porque nuestros camiones de bomberos no tenían agua.
L'un de mes amis les plus proches, Okoloma, est mort dans un accident d'avion parce que nos camions de pompiers n'avaient pas d'eau.
I grew up under repressive military governments that devalued education, so that sometimes my parents were not paid their salaries.
||||压迫的||||贬低|||||||||||
||||||||abwerteten|||||||||||
||||||||devalutavano|||||||||||
And so, as a child, I saw jam disappear from the breakfast table, then margarine disappeared, then bread became too expensive, then milk became rationed.
||||||||||||||人造黄油||||||||||配给
||||||||||||||||||||||||limited in supply
||||||||||||||margarina||||||||||razionata
|||||||mermelada|||||||margarina||||||||||racionada
C'est ainsi qu'enfant, j'ai vu la confiture disparaître de la table du petit-déjeuner, puis la margarine, le pain devenu trop cher, le lait rationné.
And most of all, a kind of normalized political fear invaded our lives.
|||||||正常化的|||||
|||||||normalizzata||paura politica|||
||||||||||invadió||vidas
Et surtout, une sorte de peur politique normalisée a envahi nos vies.
All of these stories make me who I am.
But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me.
||||||||||扁平化||||||||||||
||||||||||appiattire|||||trascurare|||||||
||||||||||reducir|||||pasar por alto||||||formaron|
Mas insistir apenas nestas histórias negativas é achatar a minha experiência e ignorar as muitas outras histórias que me formaram.
The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.
|||||||||Stereotypen|||||||||||
|||||||||||||||false|||||incomplete
|||||||||||||||falsas|||||
They make one story become the only story.
Of course, Africa is a continent full of catastrophes: There are immense ones, such as the horrific rapes in Congo and depressing ones, such as the fact that 5,000 people apply for one job vacancy in Nigeria.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||职位空缺||
||||||||Katastrophen|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||catastrofi||||||||orribili|stupro||Congo||||||||||||||offerta di lavoro||
|||||||||||inmensas|las||||horripilantes|violaciones||||deprimente|las|||||||||||vacante||
Bien sûr, l'Afrique est un continent plein de catastrophes : Il y a celles qui sont immenses, comme les viols horribles au Congo, et celles qui sont déprimantes, comme le fait que 5 000 personnes postulent pour une offre d'emploi au Nigeria.
But there are other stories that are not about catastrophe, and it is very important, it is just as important, to talk about them.
I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person.
||||||||impegnarsi|||||||||interagire|||||||||||
||||||||involucrarse|||||||||involucrarse|||||||||||
J'ai toujours pensé qu'il était impossible de s'intéresser correctement à un lieu ou à une personne sans s'intéresser à toutes les histoires de ce lieu et de cette personne.
Sempre achei que é impossível envolvermo-nos corretamente com um lugar ou uma pessoa sem nos envolvermos com todas as histórias desse lugar e dessa pessoa.
The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity.
|||||||||剥夺|||
||||||||||||Würde
|||||||||privano|||
|||||||||despoja|||
A consequência da história única é esta: Rouba a dignidade às pessoas.
It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult.
Torna difícil o reconhecimento da nossa igual humanidade.
It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.
|sottolinea||||||||||
Dá mais ênfase às nossas diferenças do que às nossas semelhanças.
So what if before my Mexican trip I had followed the immigration debate from both sides, the U.S.
Et si, avant mon voyage au Mexique, j'avais suivi le débat sur l'immigration des deux côtés, aux États-Unis et en Europe ?
E se, antes da minha viagem ao México, eu tivesse acompanhado o debate sobre a imigração de ambos os lados, o dos EUA e o dos Estados Unidos?
and the Mexican?
What if my mother had told us that Fide’s family was poor and hardworking?
|||||||||||||勤劳
|||||||||||||laboriosa
||||||||Fide|||||
Et si ma mère nous avait dit que la famille de Fide était pauvre et travailleuse ?
What if we had an African television network that broadcast diverse African stories all over the world?
|||||||||trasmettesse|||||||
|||tuviéramos|||||||||||||
Et si nous avions une chaîne de télévision africaine qui diffusait des histoires africaines diverses dans le monde entier ?
What the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe calls "a balance of stories.
Ce que l'écrivain nigérian Chinua Achebe appelle "un équilibre d'histoires".
What if my roommate knew about my Nigerian publisher, Mukta Bakaray, a remarkable man who left his job in a bank to follow his dream and start a publishing house?
||||||||editore|Mukta Bakaray|Bakaray(1)||||||||||||||||||casa editrice|
||||||||editorial|Mukta|Bakaray|||||||||||||||||||
Et si mon colocataire connaissait mon éditeur nigérian, Mukta Bakaray, un homme remarquable qui a quitté son emploi dans une banque pour réaliser son rêve et créer une maison d'édition ?
E se o meu colega de quarto soubesse do meu editor nigeriano, Mukta Bakaray, um homem notável que deixou o seu emprego num banco para seguir o seu sonho e abrir uma editora?
Now, the conventional wisdom was that Nigerians don’t read literature.
|||opinione comune|||i nigeriani|||
||convencional|sabiduría|||nigerianos|||
L'idée reçue était que les Nigérians ne lisaient pas de littérature.
He disagreed.
He felt that people who could read, would read, if you made literature affordable and available to them.
|||||||||||||||disponible||
Shortly after he published my first novel I went to a TV station in Lagos to do an interview,and a woman who worked there as a messenger came up to me and said, "I really liked your novel.
poco después|||publicó|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peu après la publication de mon premier roman, je me suis rendue dans une station de télévision à Lagos pour y faire une interview, et une femme qui y travaillait comme messagère est venue me voir et m'a dit : "J'ai vraiment aimé votre roman.
I didn’t like the ending.
Now you must write a sequel, and this is what will happen ..." (Laughter) And she went on to tell me what to write in the sequel.
|||||seguito||||||||||||||||||||
Vous devez maintenant écrire une suite, et voici ce qui va se passer...". (Rires) Et elle m'a dit ce qu'il fallait écrire dans la suite.
I was not only charmed, I was very moved.
||||被迷住了||||
||||incantato||||
Je n'ai pas seulement été charmée, j'ai été très émue.
Não fiquei apenas encantado, fiquei muito comovido.
Here was a woman, part of the ordinary masses of Nigerians,who were not supposed to be readers.
Il s'agissait d'une femme qui faisait partie de la masse ordinaire des Nigérians, qui n'étaient pas censés être des lecteurs.
She had not only read the book, but she had taken ownership of it and felt justified in telling me what to write in the sequel.
Non seulement elle avait lu le livre, mais elle se l'était approprié et se sentait en droit de me dire ce qu'il fallait écrire dans la suite.
Ela não só tinha lido o livro, como se tinha apropriado dele e sentia-se justificada para me dizer o que escrever na sequela.
Now, what if my roommate knew about my friend Fumi Onda, a fearless woman who hosts a TV show in Lagos, and is determined to tell the stories that we prefer to forget?
|||||||||Fumi Onda|Onda||senza paura||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||Fumi|Onda|||||presentadora|||||||||||||||||
Et si mon colocataire connaissait mon amie Fumi Onda, une femme intrépide qui anime une émission de télévision à Lagos et qui est déterminée à raconter les histoires que nous préférons oublier ?
What if my roommate knew about the heart procedure that was performed in the Lagos hospital last week?
Et si mon colocataire était au courant de l'intervention cardiaque pratiquée à l'hôpital de Lagos la semaine dernière ?
What if my roommate knew about contemporary Nigerian music, talented people singing in English and Pidgin, and Igbo and Yoruba and Ijo, mixing influences from Jay-Z to Fela to Bob Marley to their grandfathers.
||||||zeitgenössische||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||pidgin||||||Ijo|||||||Fela Kuti|||Bob Marley|||
|||||||||||||||||||||Ijo|||||||Fela|||Marley|||
What if my roommate knew about the female lawyer who recently went to court in Nigeria to challenge a ridiculous law that required women to get their husband’s consent before renewing their passports?
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||更新护照||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||permission||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||rinnovare||passaporti
What if my roommate knew about Nollywood, full of innovative people making films despite great technical odds, films so popular that they really are the best example of Nigerians consuming what they produce?
||||||尼日利亚电影业||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||challenges||||||||||of creativity||||||
||||||Nollywood||||||||||difficoltà tecniche||||||||||||||||
||||||Nollywood||||||||||dificultades||||||||||||||||
¿Y si mi compañero de piso conociera Nollywood, lleno de gente innovadora que hace películas a pesar de las grandes dificultades técnicas, películas tan populares que realmente son el mejor ejemplo de que los nigerianos consumen lo que producen?
Et si mon colocataire connaissait Nollywood, plein de gens innovants qui réalisent des films en dépit d'obstacles techniques considérables, des films si populaires qu'ils sont le meilleur exemple de la consommation par les Nigérians de ce qu'ils produisent ?
E se a minha colega de quarto conhecesse Nollywood, cheia de pessoas inovadoras que fazem filmes apesar de grandes dificuldades técnicas, filmes tão populares que são realmente o melhor exemplo de nigerianos que consomem o que produzem?
What if my roommate knew about my wonderfully ambitious hair braider, who has just started her own business selling hair extensions?
||||||||||编发师||||||||||接发产品
|||||||||||||||possessive pronoun|||||
||||||||ambiziosa||parrucchiera di trecce||||||||||extensioni
||||||||||trenzadora||||||||||
Et si ma colocataire savait que ma tresseuse, merveilleusement ambitieuse, vient de créer sa propre entreprise de vente d'extensions capillaires ?
Or about the millions of other Nigerians who start businesses and sometimes fail, but continue to nurse ambition?
||||||||||||||||nutrire l'ambizione|
||||||||||||||||nutren|
Ou sobre os milhões de outros nigerianos que criam empresas e por vezes falham, mas continuam a alimentar a ambição?
Every time I am home I am confronted with the usual sources of irritation for most Nigerians:our failed infrastructure, our failed government, but also by the incredible resilience of people who thrive despite the government, rather than because of it.
|||||||faced with|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||prosperano||||||||
||||||||||||||||||fallida||||||||||||||prosperan||||||||
Sempre que estou em casa, sou confrontado com as fontes habituais de irritação da maioria dos nigerianos: as nossas infra-estruturas falhadas, o nosso governo falhado, mas também com a incrível resiliência das pessoas que prosperam apesar do governo, e não por causa dele.
I teach writing workshops in Lagos every summer, and it is amazing to me how many people apply, how many people are eager to write, to tell stories.
||||||||||||||||||||||desiderosi|||||
|||||||||||||||||aplican|||||ansiosos|||||
Dou workshops de escrita em Lagos todos os Verões e é espantoso ver quantas pessoas se candidatam, quantas pessoas estão ansiosas por escrever, por contar histórias.
My Nigerian publisher and I have just started a non-profit called Farafina Trust, and we have big dreams of building libraries and refurbishing libraries that already exist and providing books for state schools that don’t have anything in their libraries, and also of organizing lots and lots of workshops, in reading and writing, for all the people who are eager to tell our many stories.
||||||||||||法拉菲纳|||||||||||翻新||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||aspirations|||||updating existing||||that are present||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||Fondo Farafina|||||||||||ristrutturare||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||sin fines de lucro||Farafina|Trust||||||||||renovando||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stories matter.
Stories matter|
historias|
Many stories matter.
Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.
||||||||诽谤||||||||赋权|||使...更人性化
|||||enteignen|||verleumden|||||||||||
|||||privare|||denigrare||||||||dare potere|||umanizzare
|||||desposeer|||difamar|||||||||||humanizar
Les histoires ont été utilisées pour déposséder et dénigrer, mais elles peuvent aussi être utilisées pour responsabiliser et humaniser.
Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.
||||Würde|||||||||||
||||||||||||riparare|||
The American writer Alice Walker wrote this about her Southern relatives who had moved to the North.
그||||||||||||||||
|||Alice Walker|||||||||||||
||||||||||parientes||||||
She introduced them to a book about the Southern life that they had left behind:"They sat around, reading the book themselves, listening to me read the book, and a kind of paradise was regained.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||重获
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||wiedererlangt
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||riacquistato
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||recuperado
Elle leur a fait découvrir un livre sur la vie sudiste qu'ils avaient laissée derrière eux : "Ils se sont assis autour de moi, lisant le livre eux-mêmes, m'écoutant lire le livre, et une sorte de paradis a été retrouvé.
Apresentou-lhes um livro sobre a vida sulista que tinham deixado para trás: "Sentaram-se a ler o livro, ouviram-me ler o livro e recuperaram uma espécie de paraíso.
Она познакомила их с книгой о южной жизни, которую они оставили: "Они сидели, читали книгу сами, слушали, как я читаю, и снова обретали некое подобие рая.
" I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||天堂
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||zurückgewinnen||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||riacquistiamo||||
" Je voudrais terminer par cette pensée : Lorsque nous rejetons l'histoire unique, lorsque nous réalisons qu'il n'y a jamais d'histoire unique sur aucun lieu, nous retrouvons une sorte de paradis.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Applaus
