美国国家公共电台 NPR Novelist Esi Edugyan On Black Genius And What Comes After Slavery

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Prominent authors meet for dinner in London tonight. They learn which of them receives the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Those up for the award include Canadian Esi Edugyan, whose novel is "Washington Black."

ESI EDUGYAN: You know, when you're starting a novel, you're really playing with character. And you're letting them interact, and you're seeing what comes of it. And at least for me, as a writer, I really have no idea where my story is going at the outset of it.

INSKEEP: As her novel starts, it seems the narrator is not going anywhere. It's the 1830s, and he is a boy enslaved on the British controlled island of Barbados. He seems likely to be worked to death in sugar cane¹ fields. Then Washington Black is made an assistant of a visiting white man, who becomes his friend in a way.

EDUGYAN: Any true friendship between them is impossible because of the power imbalance in their relationship. It's just too great.

INSKEEP: Yet the white Englishman teaches Washington Black to read and draw. He's revealed to be an almost supernaturally talented artist - soaking up knowledge that he was denied as a slave. The novelist says she didn't plan for the story to turn out that way.

EDUGYAN: Part of what I was wanting to explore was this idea of, I guess, black genius as being something that obviously would have existed back then - that you would have people with great gifts but that this is something that would have been snuffed out very brutally² and without much thought. A friend of mine said that, you know, we tend to think of slavery in terms of the loss of black bodies. But, you know, we don't really stop so much to think about the loss of potential, of black greatness, of black genius.

INSKEEP: I have to ask because I'm hearing you saying that you start the novel and don't exactly know where it's going. I don't think it's giving away too much to note that this young enslaved man and his older white companion are going to escape Barbados. They're going to get out of there. Did you need to get out of there - get out of that slave situation as a novelist for your own sanity³?

EDUGYAN: It wasn't so much that as that I felt that with this novel what I really wanted to explore was his life post-slavery and to show how - you know, by being physically⁴ free, we think of that as being kind of the end of slavery. Well, he's not in chains. He's gotten away. He's physically free. But I really think that, you know, there had to be huge psychological ramifications⁵ to having been a slave - even while you are free in body, that obviously you're carrying with you a great trauma⁶ and probably a great sense of bewilderment about your place in the world. And I really wanted to express that.

INSKEEP: I'm thinking of two ways that comes across. One, the young man is constantly thinking he's going to be recaptured or chased down. Another one, there's an observation late in the book when it becomes apparent that in a way he resents being freed. He resents the white man who freed him. Obviously, he gave him so many opportunities but also took him away from everything that he knew and dislocated him in a way.

EDUGYAN: Yeah. But I also think - I think the main thing that he resents is the feeling that the man who freed him did not respect him as an equal. And this is really the crux⁷ of what starts to eat at him - is that this man made this great gesture of helping⁸ him be free, and yet he really has this sense that though this man thought of himself as an abolitionist and, you know, a great crusader for good in the world, that he didn't actually recognize the humanity of Washington.

INSKEEP: Why does this feel like a relevant story to you in 2018?

EDUGYAN: I think we're still dealing⁹ with obviously a lot of the themes and concerns that come up in the book - things like racial injustice¹⁰, racial inequality, the idea that some lives are more worthy¹¹ than other lives. But also this idea of people kind of being galvanized to do something in the world. If you think of the abolitionists and how they really had to not only sort of change their own thinking about slavery, which would have been just a very sort of quotidian¹² everyday thing - I mean, the sugar arrived on your table in the mornings. You put it in your oatmeal. You understood that this was the product of slave labor¹³. But it was going on in a part of the world that you would probably never in your life see, you know, done by people who you really had nothing in common with. So to be able to change their own thinking about that and then to galvanize a whole society to change public thinking, then this is something huge and amazing.

INSKEEP: So I was interviewing American voters the other day in the state of Kentucky. And there were a couple of folks in heavily white areas who brought up black people a couple of times and expressed bafflement. They essentially¹⁴ said, I don't understand what it is that black people are complaining about. I don't see prejudice in my own life. And they're saying, I don't - I just don't get it. I don't get this Black Lives Matter thing. What would you say to somebody who hears a little bit of this history that you're laying out and finds it to be old news?

EDUGYAN: Well, that's very disheartening to hear you say that. But, of course, I know that this exists. To me, that's quite shocking because, I mean, how can one watch, say, videos of police officers gunning down unarmed citizens - how can anybody watch those videos and still contend that there is not a problem and that we have racial equality and fairness? This is baffling to me. I feel that there's been regression, that there's been steps backwards¹⁵ in terms of people wanting to understand each other's experience and really being open to it.

And I think one of the things that novels can do is to bring a reader into the character's experience - especially a character who is nothing like them. You know, we're dealing here with a boy in 1830s Barbados who's a slave. But if you can read that and start to see maybe how you're like him or similarities and also to feel for him as he's going through these hardships - if you can do that, perhaps that can be the beginnings of some kind of empathy.

INSKEEP: Esi Edugyan is the author of "Washington Black," a novel that's been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, which we find out about today.

EDUGYAN: Thanks so much. Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHRISTIAN SCOTT ATUNDE ADJUAH'S "RULER REBEL")

1 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

2 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

3 sanity   

n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确

参考例句：

• I doubt the sanity of such a plan.我怀疑这个计划是否明智。
• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。

4 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

5 ramifications   

n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These changes are bound to have widespread social ramifications. 这些变化注定会造成许多难以预料的社会后果。
• What are the ramifications of our decision to join the union? 我们决定加入工会会引起哪些后果呢？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

7 crux   

adj.十字形；难事，关键，最重要点

参考例句：

• The crux of the matter is how to comprehensively treat this trend.问题的关键是如何全面地看待这种趋势。
• The crux of the matter is that attitudes have changed.问题的要害是人们的态度转变了。

8 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

9 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

10 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

11 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

12 quotidian   

adj.每日的，平凡的

参考例句：

• Television has become part of our quotidian existence.电视已成为我们日常生活的一部分。
• Most solutions to the problem of global warming are tediousl,almost oppressively,quotidian.大多数应对全球变暖的措施都是冗长乏味，几近压制，以及司空见惯的。

13 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

14 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

15 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。