美国国家公共电台 NPR Tomi Adeyemi On 'Children Of Virtue And Vengeance,' Her 'Blood And Bone' Sequel

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

"Children Of Blood And Bone" was an instant success when it was published last year. The young-adult fantasy novel by then-24-year-old author Tomi Adeyemi has so far spent 89 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It made countless¹ best books lists. And it was optioned for a movie by Disney. It spoke² to people.

TOMI ADEYEMI: I always pitched it as, like, "Black Panther" with magic. It's this epic³ young-adult fantasy about a girl fighting to bring magic back to her people.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And now there's a sequel. It's called "Children Of Virtue⁴ And Vengeance⁵." The heroine Zelie has succeeded in her quest to bring magic back to her people, the maji, in the land of Orisha. But the magic hasn't just come back to them. The nobility and the military now have powerful magic, too. And civil war looms⁶. So now what?

ADEYEMI: Honestly, that is sort of what the characters have to wrestle⁷ with. And Zelie and Amari are kind of like, OK, Now what? What do we do? This isn't what we thought it was going to be.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Amari is her partner - right? who is a runaway⁸...

ADEYEMI: Yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: ...Princess who sort of joins...

ADEYEMI: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: ...The rebellion.

ADEYEMI: You know, they brought about this change together. And they had a vision for how everything was going to go. But it doesn't go that way. But then they also have their personal demons⁹. They're both very traumatized girls. I'm really mean to my characters (laughter). And so they have a lot to both deal with personally and in terms of like, OK - well, who am I? What am I wrestling with? What do I want? Is what I want actually what you want? Are we actually still on the same team in this? It's about kind of how complicated things is, especially with people that you love.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You're Nigerian American and a scholar...

ADEYEMI: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: ...Of West African mythology¹⁰. There is so much specificity in the books. Everything is very Nigerian.

ADEYEMI: Yeah. So the Orisha - that was the inspiration for this world - I didn't know at the time that that was a part of my Nigerian, like, heritage.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This is the - these are the deities¹¹ of the Yoruba.

ADEYEMI: Yeah. So the Orisha - it's both. It's a religion. It's a mythology. It started in West Africa. And then it was disseminated¹² through the world through the slave trade. And so it sort of looks a little bit different everywhere you see it. So, like, for example, you have Santeria in Cuba, Candomble in Brazil. And so it's this rich pot in history. And it resonated with me so strongly. So then to find out that, like, wait - this is a part of me - it was this gift and this ability to build a world based off something that I loved and something that was close to my heart.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You know, everyone in this story is black.

ADEYEMI: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And what's interesting also about this is that the power that they have is related to their blackness, their skin being darker, their hair being curlier. And I read that, when you were young, you said that you would write mostly black characters, but then that changed as you got older. What happened?

ADEYEMI: My stories - I call them, like, fantasy memoir¹³ fan fiction in the sense that the common thread has always been, like - the first story I ever wrote, I wanted a twin and a horse. And my parents wouldn't give me a twin and a horse.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter).

ADEYEMI: So I'm like, I will give myself a twin and a horse. And I wrote this 30-page story. I was, like, around the age of 6. And the twins were named Tomi and Tomi (ph).

GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter).

ADEYEMI: And, you know, it was like, OK - cool. Now I have everything I wanted. It kind of kept going with that - just the - what I wanted became more magical. But subconsciously¹⁴, what I wanted also became - oh, in this - my fantasy, I can be white. Like, oh, I can have magic. And I can be white. Or I can, you know, shoot lightning out of my hands, and I can be biracial. And it was, like, it took a lot for me to become the type of person who could even write a story like "Children Of Blood And Bone."

And, really, "Children Of Blood And Bone," too, also came from seeing two pieces of art with black people in it and, like, some of the first two of my life, if not, the first ever. And so I'm like, if two photos, two, like, fantastical illustrations of black people created that 600-page world, you know - I'm - and, like, that's what - I always try and quantify representation because it's really hard to explain to someone what not seeing yourself does because it's so internal, and it's so deep inside. But it's, like, if two pictures equals this book, what do you think this book can mean for people? What do you think this cover can mean for people? I was, like, just a little bit of representation can be monumental.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What were those pictures?

ADEYEMI: One picture was - I was in a gift shop in Brazil. I was only there 'cause it was raining, and I didn't want my hair to get wet. And I see this postcard with the Orisha on it. I didn't know what it was at the time. But I just saw, like, this beautiful, like, black goddess commanding the sea and, like, this beautiful, dark-skinned man, like, breathing fire. And I had never ever seen - like, wow. That's myself. Like, this is me. This person is even darker than me. And she's doing this beautiful magic. And so, like, that was kind of instantaneous. Like, I saw that, and the world of Orisha came to me very quickly.

And then about eight months later, I saw this picture on Pinterest. It was a digital illustration of this black girl with, like, luminescent green hair. And I'm like, OK. What if she lived in, like, a space colony? What if she was, like, a fisherman or a fisherman's daughter of some sort? What if she had to go to the market one day? Oh, what if she's in the market, and this girl runs up to - and then I was just like, oh, wait. This isn't in a - what if you took this thing and put it in that world. You have - do that fit? Oh, my gosh. They fit so well. And it was, like, two photos of people who look like me when I was - what? - 23, I think. Imagine if I had had that when I was 6.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: In this book, the sequel, all of a sudden, the oppressors have this thing that the oppressed wanted - magic, as well. What were you trying to say with that? That sort of everyone all of a sudden gets magic, but it doesn't actually level the playing field?

ADEYEMI: The older I get, the more I realized the power of institutions. And institutions are old. They're powerful for a reason. They have been set up a long time ago by very rich and powerful people to disenfranchise you systematically¹⁵. And so I think, sometimes, it's like, we focus on - we can look at our, like, political history. We focused on Obama because that's a goal. That's a battle we can try and fight. Like, let's try and get this person in the White House. Oh, my gosh. He's in the White House. Magic is back. It's great. But, suddenly, police brutality¹⁶ is - I won't - I don't know if it's necessarily on the rise. And this is NPR, so I really don't want to say (laughter) anything or something that might not be a true fact. But at least it became popularized in the sense that we realized it was going on. It started with Trayvon Martin, and it kind of just snowballed. That was during the Obama presidency¹⁷.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And so having Obama there doesn't fix everything.

ADEYEMI: That's sort of how I think about it. It's like, yes. You can focus on getting magic. But then you'll see that magic wasn't completely the problem. The entire system is against you. So what are you going to do?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Tomi Adeyemi is the author of "Children Of Virtue And Vengeance." Thank you so much.

ADEYEMI: Thank you so much.

1 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

4 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

5 vengeance   

n.报复，报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• He swore vengeance against the men who murdered his father.他发誓要向那些杀害他父亲的人报仇。
• For years he brooded vengeance.多年来他一直在盘算报仇。

6 looms   

n.织布机( loom的名词复数 )v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的第三人称单数 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• All were busily engaged,men at their ploughs,women at their looms. 大家都很忙，男的耕田，女的织布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The factory has twenty-five looms. 那家工厂有25台织布机。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 wrestle   

vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付

参考例句：

• He taught his little brother how to wrestle.他教他小弟弟如何摔跤。
• We have to wrestle with difficulties.我们必须同困难作斗争。

8 runaway   

n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的

参考例句：

• The police have not found the runaway to date.警察迄今没抓到逃犯。
• He was praised for bringing up the runaway horse.他勒住了脱缰之马受到了表扬。

9 demons   

n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念

参考例句：

• demons torturing the sinners in Hell 地狱里折磨罪人的魔鬼
• He is plagued by demons which go back to his traumatic childhood. 他为心魔所困扰，那可追溯至他饱受创伤的童年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

11 deities   

n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明

参考例句：

• Zeus and Aphrodite were ancient Greek deities. 宙斯和阿佛洛狄是古希腊的神。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Taoist Wang hesitated occasionally about these transactions for fearof offending the deities. 道士也有过犹豫，怕这样会得罪了神。 来自汉英文学 - 现代散文

12 disseminated   

散布，传播( disseminate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Their findings have been widely disseminated . 他们的研究成果已经广为传播。
• Berkovitz had contracted polio after ingesting a vaccine disseminated under federal supervision. 伯考维茨在接种了在联邦监督下分发的牛痘疫苗后传染上脊髓灰质炎。

13 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

14 subconsciously   

ad.下意识地，潜意识地

参考例句：

• In choosing a partner we are subconsciously assessing their evolutionary fitness to be a mother of children or father provider and protector. 在选择伴侣的时候，我们会在潜意识里衡量对方将来是否会是称职的母亲或者父亲，是否会是合格的一家之主。
• Lao Yang thought as he subconsciously tightened his grasp on the rifle. 他下意识地攥紧枪把想。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

15 systematically   

adv.有系统地

参考例句：

• This government has systematically run down public services since it took office.这一屆政府自上台以来系统地削减了公共服务。
• The rainforest is being systematically destroyed.雨林正被系统地毀灭。

16 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

17 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。