美国国家公共电台 NPR--Anna Badkhen's new essay collection touches on migration and displacement

Anna Badkhen's new essay collection touches on migration¹ and displacement²

Transcript³

NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Soviet-born writer Anna Badkhen about the birthplace of humankind and global migration. Her new essay collection is called: Bright Unbearable⁴ Reality.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The writer Anna Badkhen defines this moment right now that we are all collectively living as a bright, unbearable reality.

ANNA BADKHEN: I think of our planet and of our humanity as in a state of dire⁵, urgent need when we need to look at our condition head-on if we want to not just survive but become better.

FADEL: "Bright Unbearable Reality" is also the title of Badkhen's new book of essays. In her writings, she's searching for what connects human beings across continents when 1 in 7 people has left their birthplace. At a time when the planet is consumed by violence between humans and by humans on the world that sustains them, Badkhen is searching for hope. Her first stop on that journey is a weeklong walk in the Sahara Desert, where sand washes away any trace of the generations of people that walked the same path, and then to the birthplace of humanity, Rift⁶ Valley in Ethiopia.

BADKHEN: I went to Ethiopia because the Afar Triangle in the Rift Valley is believed to be one of the places where humans were born. And I had also thought of Ethiopia in the current sense. It's the place from which hundreds of thousands of people migrate, either via Sudan or via Somalia, to look for more prosperous life in Europe or in the Middle East. There was, for me, an overlay of a very, very ancient migration and a very, very contemporary migration. And I had planned that trip for months, and then I arrived in Ethiopia the day the World Health Organization declared the pandemic.

FADEL: Yeah. There it is, right in the middle of your trip. And you write, my journey became a real-time passage through a world undergoing a dramatic and unprecedented⁷ remaking.

BADKHEN: And I also thought, here I am in this place where we began at a time when the entire world is thinking about ending. And also, I thought the last time all of us shared a story, were affected⁸ by the same story, was when we were here, when we were a small community of early, early humans - or, you know, pre-humans - and we shared the same context. And this is the second time, or the first time since then, that all of humanity shares the same context knowingly.

FADEL: I didn't know the origin of the word migrant until I read it in your book. Can you talk about that word and where it came from?

BADKHEN: So the word migrant entered the English language as an adjective for animals that move in the 17th century. And it wasn't used for humans until 1807, when a minister in New Hampshire talked about the colonial history of New Hampshire and used it to describe human movement. So its origin is with animals. That is a very interesting and kind of queasy-making knowledge because very often the settled today treat the migrant as less than human. And even the language we use for migrants - we talk about animals. We talk about humans snaking in line to enter a camp. There's still this suspicion of the migrant.

FADEL: But also the way it is used sometimes - almost as a dirty word in and of itself in the political landscape, right?

BADKHEN: Yeah. You know, I hadn't thought of myself as a migrant. I'm a migrant, but I hadn't thought of myself as a migrant when I first came to the United States in 2004, until I was visiting friends in Dallas, and there was a program to gather oral histories of migrants. And my friends said, you should go. And I thought, oh, wow, that's me. And then I thought, oh, wow, I'm also infected with this stereotype⁹, because in my mind at the time, migrant was also already somehow a deficiency.

FADEL: You also spend a lot of time looking at panoramic¹⁰ images of people on the move. What is it from above? What do you learn from looking from that perspective, that lens?

BADKHEN: I learn about our remove. And again, it probably feeds into the conversation of how we treat migrants and how we treat survivors¹¹ or victims of catastrophes¹². Aerial imagery is often made by drones, and today it is often made by the same drones that deliver death.

FADEL: Yeah.

BADKHEN: So that's something to pause and think about. But another thing to pause and think about is, why do we want to see these images? What is the strange, voyeuristic¹³ requirement that we have so that we can see the scope and yet not be immediately touched by it - this desire to know and at the same time desire to know in an impersonal¹⁴ way?

FADEL: Yeah. I mean, to be so far away, you don't have to see the individual person that you're watching move or that you're killing¹⁵.

BADKHEN: Exactly - or both.

FADEL: Or both. Or both. When we started talking, you said that you were looking for hope, for what connects people. Did you feel like you found that?

BADKHEN: Well, Leila, you know, I don't think it's a book of answers.

(LAUGHTER)

FADEL: True.

BADKHEN: It's definitely a book of questions.

FADEL: And it's a book of truths.

BADKHEN: Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for reading it this way. I think what I did find was moments of hope. You know, it's like looking at a bird. Maybe the bird won't tell you anything. Most likely it won't. But you can look at it, and it's beautiful. And there is something to hold on to there. And maybe the missing of the people you've left or missing people you have lost is terrible, but, you know, the wages of dying is love. You also recognize that you're capable of that missing, that you are capable of that affection, of that attachment¹⁶. I think the hope for me is that we are capable of these - we're capable of tenderness. We're capable of compassion¹⁷.

FADEL: Anna Badkhen's new book is called "Bright Unbearable Reality." Thank you so much.

BADKHEN: Thank you very much for having me.

1 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

2 displacement   

n.移置，取代，位移，排水量

参考例句：

• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。
• The displacement of all my energy into caring for the baby.我所有精力都放在了照顾宝宝上。

3 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

4 unbearable   

adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的

参考例句：

• It is unbearable to be always on thorns.老是处于焦虑不安的情况中是受不了的。
• The more he thought of it the more unbearable it became.他越想越觉得无法忍受。

5 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

6 rift   

n.裂口，隙缝，切口；v.裂开，割开，渗入

参考例句：

• He was anxious to mend the rift between the two men.他急于弥合这两个人之间的裂痕。
• The sun appeared through a rift in the clouds.太阳从云层间隙中冒出来。

7 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

8 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

9 stereotype   

n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框

参考例句：

• He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
• There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。

10 panoramic   

adj. 全景的

参考例句：

• Most rooms enjoy panoramic views of the sea. 大多数房间都能看到海的全景。
• In a panoramic survey of nature, speed is interesting because it has a ceiling. 概观自然全景，速率是有趣的，因为它有一个上限。

11 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

12 catastrophes   

n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难

参考例句：

• Two of history's worst natural catastrophes occurred in 1970. 1970年发生了历史上最严重两次自然灾害。 来自辞典例句
• The Swiss deposits contain evidence of such catastrophes. 瑞士的遗址里还有这种灾难的证据。 来自辞典例句

13 voyeuristic   

adj.喜好窥阴的

参考例句：

• On the other hand, perhaps the author of the spyware just has voyeuristic tendencies. 不过，也可能程序作者只是有窥阴癖而已。 来自互联网
• Hitchcock also a perverse thrill out of taking audiences on a voyeuristic roller-coaster ride. 希区柯克也有有害刺激的考虑受众的偷窥过山车旅程。 来自互联网

14 impersonal   

adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的

参考例句：

• Even his children found him strangely distant and impersonal.他的孩子们也认为他跟其他人很疏远，没有人情味。
• His manner seemed rather stiff and impersonal.他的态度似乎很生硬冷淡。

15 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

16 attachment   

n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附

参考例句：

• She has a great attachment to her sister.她十分依恋她的姐姐。
• She's on attachment to the Ministry of Defense.她现在隶属于国防部。

17 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。