纽约时报 曾红极一时的詹姆斯·鲍德温(3)（在线收听）

    What once felt poetically exaggerated, of course, can now feel prophetic.

    当然，那些人们曾认为被诗意夸大的东西，现在可以被视为预言。

    Baldwin was a disquieting tremor that would agitate generations — a role he seemed acutely aware of, even at the lowest ebbs of the public's attention.

    鲍德温的存在就像令人不安的震动，会让几代人激动不已——他似乎敏锐地意识到了这一作用，即使是在公众注意力最低的时候。

    "I was right about what was happening in the country," he said in his final interview, with the poet Quincy Troupe in 1987.

    他在1987年接受诗人昆西·特鲁普的采访时（这是他最后一次接受采访）表示，“我对这个国家正在发生的事情的看法是正确的。

    "What was about to happen to all of us really, one way or the other."无论以何种方式，我们所有人即将遭遇的事情都会发生。”

    He could be merciless both on and off the page, having decided, at some point, not to rely on the approval of any audience, white or Black.

    无论在台上还是台下，他都可以毫不留情，因为他在某个时刻决定不依赖任何观众的认可，无论是白人还是黑人。

    "Do you think there's still a chance for today's Black writer?"“你认为今天的黑人作家还有机会吗？”

    he is asked by a young boy, in the part of the "20/20" segment when he speaks with children at a police athletic league in Harlem.

    这是在《20/20》节目中，他在哈莱姆区一个警察体育联盟与孩子们交谈时，一个小男孩问他的问题。

    "There never was a chance for a Black writer," Baldwin replies, taking the boy's chin in his hand.

    鲍德温手捧着男孩的下巴回答说，“黑人作家从来没有机会。

    "A writer, Black or white, doesn't have much of a chance. Nobody wants a writer until he's dead."一名作家，无论是黑人还是白人，都没有太多机会。没有人需要作家，除非他已不在人世。”

    Watching James Baldwin in a 10-minute TV segment from the 1970s isn't necessarily revelatory;看到詹姆斯·鲍德温在20世纪70年代一个10分钟长的电视片段中亮相，并不一定具有启示意义；he is much as we know him today, the same exacting genius.

    如同我们今天对他的认知一样，他还是那个要求严格的天才。

    But it comes with the reminder that he was reaching for some truths that would outlast the country's interest, or lack thereof.

    但这同时提醒人们，他当时在寻求一些真理，这些真理会比国家利益更持久（或缺失）。

    The 7-year-old child Baldwin is addressing, you might notice, is only a year or two older than George Floyd would have been.

    你可能注意到，和鲍德温讲话的这名7岁孩子，当时只比乔治·弗洛伊德大一两岁。

    For many in the America of 1979 — after Jim Crow, after the Voting Rights Act — Baldwin's insistence that "nothing has changed" might have felt tired.

    对于1979年美国的许多人来说，在《吉姆·克劳法》和《选举权法案》出台之后，鲍德温仍坚称“什么都没有改变”可能会让他们感到厌倦。

    But as of last year, the nation seemed open, again, to the idea that history has not stopped compulsively repeating itself.

    但截至去年，美国似乎再次对“历史没有停止强制重演”的想法持开放态度。

    Baldwin, for all the pessimism he could convey about America, ultimately recognized the nation as part of a seismic, global change.

    尽管鲍德温对美国的情况持悲观态度，但他最终还是承认美国是一场翻天覆地的全球变革的一部分。

    "When I was a kid," he said in a 1984 Paris Review interview,他在1984年接受《巴黎评论》的采访时表示，

    "the world was white, for all intents and purposes, and now it is struggling to remain white — a very different thing."“当我还是个孩子的时候，无论出于何种意图和目的，世界是白人的天下，但现在世界正在艰难维持这种白人天下的模式——这是完全不同的情况。”

    He had lived in Europe for years, but understood it to no longer be the frame of reference for civilization or literature.

    他曾在欧洲生活多年，但他明白欧洲不再是文明或文学的参照系。

    "It's a fascinating time to be living," he said. "There's a whole wide world which isn't now as it was when I was younger."他表示，“我们目前所生活的时代令人着迷。如今这个广阔的世界与我年轻时有着天壤之别。”