It's often said that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at what's on their bookshelves. What do my bookshelves say about me? Well, when I asked myself this question a few years ago, I made an alarming discovery. I'd always thought of myself as a fairly cultured, cosmopolitan sort of person. But my bookshelves told a rather different story. Pretty much all the titles on them were by British or North American authors, and there was almost nothing in translation. Discovering this massive, cultural blind spot in my reading came as quite a shock.
Često kažu da možete mnogo toga zaključiti o osobi ako pogledate šta se nalazi na njenim policama za knjige. Šta moje police govore o meni? Pa, kada sam sebi postavila to pitanje pre nekoliko godina, došla sam do alarmantnog otkrića. Oduvek sam sebe smatrala prilično kulturnim, kosmopolitskim tipom osobe. Međutim, moje police za knjige su odavale sasvim drugačiju priču. Manje-više svi naslovi na njima pripadali su britanskim ili severnoamerikim autorima, i gotovo da ništa nije bilo prevedeno. Otkriće ove ogromne, kulturne slepe mrlje u mom štivu nastupilo je kao priličan šok.
And when I thought about it, it seemed like a real shame. I knew there had to be lots of amazing stories out there by writers working in languages other than English. And it seemed really sad to think that my reading habits meant I would probably never encounter them. So, I decided to prescribe myself an intensive course of global reading. 2012 was set to be a very international year for the UK; it was the year of the London Olympics. And so I decided to use it as my time frame to try to read a novel, short story collection or memoir from every country in the world. And so I did. And it was very exciting and I learned some remarkable things and made some wonderful connections that I want to share with you today.
I kada sam razmislila o tome, činilo mi se kao prava sramota. Znala sam da mora da ima mnogo sjajnih priča u svetu koje su napisali pisci na drugim jezicima pored engleskog i delovalo je kao veoma tužna pomisao da moje čitalačke navike podrazumevaju da verovatno nikada neću naići na njih. Stoga sam rešila da sebi zadam intenzivan kurs globalnog čitanja. Godina 2012. se tako namestila da bude veoma međunarodna za Veliku Britaniju; bila je to godina Olimpijade u Londonu. Stoga sam rešila da je iskoristim kao svoj vremenski okvir da bih pokušala da pročitam roman, zbirku kratkih priča ili memoare iz svake zemlje na svetu. Tako sam to i učinila. Bilo je veoma uzbudljivo, naučila sam neke izuzetne stvari i stvorila neke divne veze koje danas želim da podelim sa vama.
But it started with some practical problems. After I'd worked out which of the many different lists of countries in the world to use for my project, I ended up going with the list of UN-recognized nations, to which I added Taiwan, which gave me a total of 196 countries. And after I'd worked out how to fit reading and blogging about, roughly, four books a week around working five days a week,
Međutim, to je otpočelo nekim praktičnim problemima. Nakon što sam razmotrila koju od mnogo različitih lista zemalja sveta da upotrebim u svom projektu, na kraju sam se odlučila za listu nacija koje prepoznaje UN, kojima sam dodala Tajvan, pri čemu sam na kraju imala 196 zemalja. Nakon što sam ustanovila kako da uklopim čitanje i pisanje na blogu o otprilike četiri knjige nedeljno u toku pet radnih dana u nedelji,
I then had to face up to the fact that I might even not be able to get books in English from every country. Only around 4.5 percent of the literary works published each year in the UK are translations, and the figures are similar for much of the English-speaking world. Although, the proportion of translated books published in many other countries is a lot higher. 4.5 percent is tiny enough to start with, but what that figure doesn't tell you is that many of those books will come from countries with strong publishing networks and lots of industry professionals primed to go out and sell those titles to English-language publishers. So, for example, although well over 100 books are translated from French and published in the UK each year, most of them will come from countries like France or Switzerland. French-speaking Africa, on the other hand, will rarely ever get a look-in.
potom sam morala da se suočim sa činjenicom da možda neću moći ni da nabavim knjige na engleskom iz svake zemlje. Samo oko 4,5 odsto književnih dela objavljenih svake godine u Velikoj Britaniji su prevodi, a te cifre su slične u većini zemalja engleskog govornog područja, premda je udeo prevedenih knjiga koje su objavljene u mnogim drugim zemljama znatno veći. Četiri i po odsto je vrlo malo za početak, ali vam ta cifra ne govori da mnoge od tih knjiga dolaze iz zemalja sa jakim izdavačkim mrežama i mnogo profesionalaca u toj industriji usmerenih ka tome da idu naokolo i prodaju te naslove izdavačima za engleski jezik. Tako, na primer, iako je znatno više od 100 knjiga prevedeno sa francuskog i svake godine objavljeno u Velikoj Britaniji, većina njih će doći iz zemalja kao što su Francuska ili Švajcarska. Afrika francuskog govornog područja, sa druge strane, retko će se tu čak i pomoliti.
The upshot is that there are actually quite a lot of nations that may have little or even no commercially available literature in English. Their books remain invisible to readers of the world's most published language. But when it came to reading the world, the biggest challenge of all for me was that fact that I didn't know where to start. Having spent my life reading almost exclusively British and North American books, I had no idea how to go about sourcing and finding stories and choosing them from much of the rest of the world. I couldn't tell you how to source a story from Swaziland. I wouldn't know a good novel from Namibia. There was no hiding it -- I was a clueless literary xenophobe. So how on earth was I going to read the world?
Zaključak je da zapravo postoji prilično mnogo naroda koji možda imaju malo ili čak nimalo komercijalno dostupne literature na engleskom jeziku. Njihove knjige ostaju nevidljive za čitaoce jezika na kome se u svetu najviše objavljuje. Međutim, kada je trebalo čitati svetsku književnost, najveći izazov za mene bila je činjenica da nisam znala odakle da počnem. S obzirom na to da sam provela život čitajući gotovo isključivo britanske i severnoameričke knjige, nisam imala pojma kako da sprovedem pribavljanje i iznalaženje priča i njihov odabir iz većine ostatka sveta. Ne mogu da vam kažem kako da nabavite priču iz Svazilenda. Ne bih znala koji je dobar roman iz Namibije. Nema šta da se krije - bila sam književni ksenofob bez ikakvog pojma. Pa, kako ću ikako moći da čitam svetsku književnost?
I was going to have to ask for help. So in October 2011, I registered my blog, ayearofreadingtheworld.com, and I posted a short appeal online. I explained who I was, how narrow my reading had been, and I asked anyone who cared to to leave a message suggesting what I might read from other parts of the planet. Now, I had no idea whether anyone would be interested, but within a few hours of me posting that appeal online, people started to get in touch. At first, it was friends and colleagues. Then it was friends of friends. And pretty soon, it was strangers.
Morala sam da zatražim pomoć. Tako sam u oktobru 2011. godine registrovala svoj blog, ayearofreadingtheworld.com, i objavila sam kratku onlajn molbu. Objasnila sam ko sam, kako je moje čitanje bilo ograničeno, i zamolila sam da bilo ko kome je stalo, ostavi poruku predlažući šta bih mogla da čitam iz drugih krajeva planete. Nisam imala pojma da li će se iko zainteresovati, ali nekoliko sati nakon mog postavljanja te molbe na internetu, ljudi su počeli da se javljaju. U početku, to su bili prijatelji i kolege. Mnogi su bili prijatelji prijatelja i uskoro nepoznati ljudi.
Four days after I put that appeal online, I got a message from a woman called Rafidah in Kuala Lumpur. She said she loved the sound of my project, could she go to her local English-language bookshop and choose my Malaysian book and post it to me? I accepted enthusiastically, and a few weeks later, a package arrived containing not one, but two books -- Rafidah's choice from Malaysia, and a book from Singapore that she had also picked out for me. Now, at the time, I was amazed that a stranger more than 6,000 miles away would go to such lengths to help someone she would probably never meet.
Četiri dana nakon što sam postavila tu molbu na internet, dobila sam poruku od žene po imenu Rafida iz Kuala Lumpura. Rekla je da joj se sviđa kako zvuči moj projekat. Da li bi mogla da ode u lokalnu knjižaru za engleski jezik da odabere malezijsku knjigu za mene i pošalje mi je? Prihvatila sam sa entuzijazmom, a nekoliko nedelja kasnije, stigao je paket koji je sadržao ne jednu, već dve knjige - jedna po Rafidinom izboru iz Malezije, i knjiga iz Singapura koju je takođe odabrala za mene. U tom trenutku sam bila zadivljena time da bi nepoznata osoba udaljena više od 9 500 kilometara otišla toliko daleko da pomogne nekome koga verovatno nikada neće sresti.
But Rafidah's kindness proved to be the pattern for that year. Time and again, people went out of their way to help me. Some took on research on my behalf, and others made detours on holidays and business trips to go to bookshops for me. It turns out, if you want to read the world, if you want to encounter it with an open mind, the world will help you. When it came to countries with little or no commercially available literature in English, people went further still.
Međutim, Rafidina ljubaznost pokazala se kao obrazac te godine. Iznova i iznova, ljudi su činili sve u svojoj moći da mi pomognu. Neki su istraživali umesto mene, a drugi su skretali sa puta na odmorima i poslovnim putovanjima da bi išli u knjižare radi mene. Ispostavilo se da, ako hoćete da čitate svetsku književnost, ako želite da se susretnete sa njom otvorenog uma, svet će vam pomoći. Kada se radilo o zemljama sa malo ili nimalo literature komercijalno dostupne na engleskom, ljudi su išli još dalje.
Books often came from surprising sources. My Panamanian read, for example, came through a conversation I had with the Panama Canal on Twitter. Yes, the Panama Canal has a Twitter account. And when I tweeted at it about my project, it suggested that I might like to try and get hold of the work of the Panamanian author Juan David Morgan. I found Morgan's website and I sent him a message, asking if any of his Spanish-language novels had been translated into English. And he said that nothing had been published, but he did have an unpublished translation of his novel "The Golden Horse." He emailed this to me, allowing me to become one of the first people ever to read that book in English.
Knjige su često pristizale iz iznenađujućih izvora. Moje panamsko štivo, na primer, došlo je kroz razgovor koji sam vodila na Tviteru sa Panamskim kanalom. Da, Panamski kanal ima nalog na Tviteru. Kada sam tvitovala o svom projektu, predložio je da bih mogla da pokušam da se domognem dela panamskog autora Huana Davida Morgana. Pronašla sam Morganov vebsajt i poslala mu poruku, pitavši ga da li je neki njegov roman na španskom jeziku preveden na engleski. Rekao je da ništa nije objavljeno, ali da ima neobjavljen prevod svog romana „Zlatni konj“. Poslao mi je to imejlom, omogućivši mi da postanem jedna od prvih ljudi koji su ikada pročitali tu knjigu na engleskom.
Morgan was by no means the only wordsmith to share his work with me in this way. From Sweden to Palau, writers and translators sent me self-published books and unpublished manuscripts of books that hadn't been picked up by Anglophone publishers or that were no longer available, giving me privileged glimpses of some remarkable imaginary worlds. I read, for example, about the Southern African king Ngungunhane, who led the resistance against the Portuguese in the 19th century; and about marriage rituals in a remote village on the shores of the Caspian sea in Turkmenistan. I met Kuwait's answer to Bridget Jones.
Morgan ni u kom slučaju nije bio jedini majstor za reči koji je podelio sa mnom svoje delo na ovakav način. Od Švedske do Palaua, pisci i prevodioci slali su mi samostalno objavljene knjige i neobjavljene rukopise knjiga koje nisu nabavili anglofonski izdavači ili koje više nisu bile dostupne, dajući mi privilegiju da bacim pogled u neke izuzetne imaginarne svetove. Čitala sam, na primer, o južnoafričkom kralju Gungunhani, koji je predvodio pokret otpora protiv Portugalaca u 19. veku, o bračnim ritualima u zabačenom selu na obalama Kaspijskog mora u Turkmenistanu. Susrela sam se sa kuvajtskim odgovorom na Bridžet Džouns.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
And I read about an orgy in a tree in Angola.
Čitala sam o orgiji na drvetu u Angoli.
But perhaps the most amazing example of the lengths that people were prepared to go to to help me read the world, came towards the end of my quest, when I tried to get hold of a book from the tiny, Portuguese-speaking African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe. Now, having spent several months trying everything I could think of to find a book that had been translated into English from the nation, it seemed as though the only option left to me was to see if I could get something translated for me from scratch. Now, I was really dubious whether anyone was going to want to help with this, and give up their time for something like that. But, within a week of me putting a call out on Twitter and Facebook for Portuguese speakers, I had more people than I could involve in the project, including Margaret Jull Costa, a leader in her field, who has translated the work of Nobel Prize winner José Saramago. With my nine volunteers in place, I managed to find a book by a São Toméan author that I could buy enough copies of online. Here's one of them. And I sent a copy out to each of my volunteers. They all took on a couple of short stories from this collection, stuck to their word, sent their translations back to me, and within six weeks, I had the entire book to read.
Ipak, možda najneverovatniji primer toga dokle su ljudi bili spremni da odu da bi mi pomogli da pročitam svetska dela, desio se pred kraj mog traganja, kada sam pokušala da se domognem knjige sa malene afričke ostrvske zemlje u kojoj se govori portugalski, Sao Tome i Principe. Nakon što sam provela nekoliko meseci pokušavajući sve čega sam se setila da nađem knjigu koja je prevedena na engleski iz te zemlje, činilo se kao da je jedina opcija koja mi je preostala da vidim da li mogu da nađem nekog da mi je prevede ispočetka. Zaista sam sumnjala da će iko želeti da mi pomogne oko toga i da odvoji svoje vreme zbog takvog nečeg. Međutim, nedelju dana od postavljanja mog poziva na Tviteru i Fejsbuku za osobe koje govore portugalski, imala sam više ljudi nego što sam mogla da ih uključim u projekat, uključujući Margaret Džul Kostu, vodećeg stručnjaka u svom polju, koja je prevela delo dobitnika Nobelove nagrade, Žozea Saramaga. Sa svojih devet okupljenih volontera, uspela sam da pronađem knjigu autora sa Sao Tome čijih sam dovoljno primeraka mogla da kupim preko interneta. Evo jednog od njih. Poslala sam primerak svakom od svojih volontera. Svi su uzeli par kratkih priča iz ove zbirke, održali svoju reč, poslali mi svoje prevode, i za šest nedelja imala sam celu knjigu za čitanje.
In that case, as I found so often during my year of reading the world, my not knowing and being open about my limitations had become a big opportunity. When it came to São Tomé and Príncipe, it was a chance not only to learn something new and discover a new collection of stories, but also to bring together a group of people and facilitate a joint creative endeavor. My weakness had become the project's strength.
U tom slučaju, kao što sam često uvidela tokom svoje godine čitanja svetskih dela, moje nepoznavanje i otvorenost u pogledu mojih ograničenja postalo je velika prilika. Što se tiče Sao Tome i Principe, to je bila prilika ne samo za učenje nečeg novog i otkrivanje novih zbirki priča, već i za okupljanje grupe ljudi i za unapređivanje zajedničkog kreativnog poduhvata. Moja slabost je postala snaga projekta.
The books I read that year opened my eyes to many things. As those who enjoy reading will know, books have an extraordinary power to take you out of yourself and into someone else's mindset, so that, for a while at least, you look at the world through different eyes. That can be an uncomfortable experience, particularly if you're reading a book from a culture that may have quite different values to your own. But it can also be really enlightening. Wrestling with unfamiliar ideas can help clarify your own thinking. And it can also show up blind spots in the way you might have been looking at the world.
Knjige koje sam pročitala te godine otvorile su mi oči za mnoge stvari. Kao što znaju oni koji uživaju u čitanju, knjige imaju izvanrednu moć da vas odvedu iz sebe samih u um nekog drugog, tako da, bar neko vreme, posmatrate svet drugim očima. To može biti neprijatno iskustvo, naročito ako čitate knjigu iz kulture koja možda ima dosta drukčije vrednosti u odnosu na vaše. Ipak, to može biti i zaista prosvetljujuće. Borba sa nepoznatim idejama vam može pomoći da razjasnite svoje razmišljanje. Takođe vam može pokazati slepe mrlje u načinu na koji ste posmatrali svet.
When I looked back at much of the English-language literature I'd grown up with, for example, I began to see how narrow a lot of it was, compared to the richness that the world has to offer. And as the pages turned, something else started to happen, too. Little by little, that long list of countries that I'd started the year with, changed from a rather dry, academic register of place names into living, breathing entities.
Kada sam se osvrnula na to uz koliko literature na engleskom jeziku sam odrasla, na primer, počela sam da uviđam koliko je njen dobar deo bio ograničen, u odnosu na bogatstvo koje svet ima u ponudi. Dok su se stranice okretale, još nešto je počelo da se dešava. Malo po malo, ta duga lista zemalja sa kojom sam započela godinu preinačila se od suvoparnog, akademskog spiska imena mesta u entitete koji žive i dišu.
Now, I don't want to suggest that it's at all possible to get a rounded picture of a country simply by reading one book. But cumulatively, the stories I read that year made me more alive than ever before to the richness, diversity and complexity of our remarkable planet. It was as though the world's stories and the people who'd gone to such lengths to help me read them had made it real to me. These days, when I look at my bookshelves or consider the works on my e-reader, they tell a rather different story. It's the story of the power books have to connect us across political, geographical, cultural, social, religious divides. It's the tale of the potential human beings have to work together.
Ne bih da sugerišem da je uopšte moguće dobiti zaokruženu sliku zemlje prosto čitanjem jedne knjige. Ipak, kada se sve sabere, priče koje sam pročitala te godine učinile su me osetljivijom više nego ikada pre na bogatstvo, raznolikost i složenost naše izuzetne planete. Kao da su je priče sveta i ljudi koji su tako daleko otišli da bi mi pomogli da ih pročitam učinile stvarnom za mene. Ovih dana, kada pogledam svoje police ili razmotrim dela na svom čitaču elektronskih knjiga, oni pričaju sasvim drugu priču. To je priča o moći koje knjige imaju da nas povežu preko političkih, geografskih, kulturnih, društvenih, verskih podela. To je priča o potencijalu koji ljudska bića imaju da rade zajedno.
And, it's testament to the extraordinary times we live in, where, thanks to the Internet, it's easier than ever before for a stranger to share a story, a worldview, a book with someone she may never meet, on the other side of the planet. I hope it's a story I'm reading for many years to come. And I hope many more people will join me. If we all read more widely, there'd be more incentive for publishers to translate more books, and we would all be richer for that.
Takođe, to je svedočanstvo izuzetnog vremena u kome živimo, u kome, zahvaljujući internetu, lakše je nego ikada pre da nepoznata osoba podeli priču, pogled na svet, knjigu sa nekim koga možda nikada neće sresti, na drugoj strani planete. Nadam se da je to priča koju ću čitati mnogo narednih godina i nadam se da će mi se pridružiti još mnogo ljudi. Ako bismo svi čitali šire, bilo bi više podsticaja za izdavače da prevedu više knjiga, a time bismo svi bili bogatiji.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)