Over the course of the 1960s, the FBI amassed almost two thousand documents in an investigation into one of America’s most celebrated minds. The subject of this inquiry was a writer named James Baldwin. At the time, the FBI investigated many artists and thinkers, but most of their files were a fraction the size of Baldwin’s. During the years when the FBI hounded him, he became one of the best-selling black authors in the world. So what made James Baldwin loom so large in the imaginations of both the public and the authorities?
在六○年代, FBI 收集了近兩千份文件, 目的是針對美國 最馳名的人進行調查。 這項研究的對象是一位作家, 叫做詹姆士包德溫。 當時, FBI 調查了許多藝術家和思想家, 但他們大多數人的檔案 和包德溫相比,都只是冰山一角。 在 FBI 追查他的這些年間, 他變成世界上 最暢銷的黑人作家之一。 所以,是什麼讓詹姆士包德溫 成為眾人和當權機關 想像中的威脅?
Born in Harlem in 1924, he was the oldest of nine children. At age fourteen, he began to work as a preacher. By delivering sermons, he developed his voice as a writer, but also grew conflicted about the Church’s stance on racial inequality and homosexuality.
他於 1924 年出生在哈林區, 是九個孩子中最年長的。 十四歲時,他開始擔任傳教士。 在布道的過程中, 他發展出了身為作家的聲音, 但也對於教堂在種族不平等 和同性戀上的立場感到衝突。
After high school, he began writing novels and essays while taking a series of odd jobs. But the issues that had driven him away from the Church were still inescapable in his daily life. Constantly confronted with racism and homophobia, he was angry and disillusioned, and yearned for a less restricted life. So in 1948, at the age of 24, he moved to Paris on a writing fellowship.
高中之後,他開始寫小說和短文, 同時打了些零工。 但讓他遠離教堂的那些議題, 仍然出現在他的日常生活中。 他常常要面對種族主義 和對同性戀的仇恨, 他很憤怒且灰心, 渴望生活中能少一點限制。 1948 年,二十四歲時, 他靠寫作的獎金,搬到巴黎。
From France, he published his first novel, "Go Tell it on the Mountain," in 1953. Set in Harlem, the book explores the Church as a source of both repression and hope. It was popular with both black and white readers. As he earned acclaim for his fiction, Baldwin gathered his thoughts on race, class, culture and exile in his 1955 extended essay, "Notes of a Native Son."
在法國,他出版了 他的第一本小說, 《高山上的呼喊》, 那是 1953 年。 這本書的背景是哈林區, 探討的主題是教堂, 它同時是壓制以及希望的源頭。 這本書受到黑人 和白人讀者的歡迎。 隨著這本小說帶來的喝采, 包德溫把他的想法集中在 種族、階級、文化,和流放上, 在 1955 年為小說寫了 延伸短文《土生子的筆記》。
Meanwhile, the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum in America. Black Americans were making incremental gains at registering to vote and voting, but were still denied basic dignities in schools, on buses, in the work force, and in the armed services. Though he lived primarily in France for the rest of his life, Baldwin was deeply invested in the movement, and keenly aware of his country’s unfulfilled promise. He had seen family, friends, and neighbors spiral into addiction, incarceration and suicide. He believed their fates originated from the constraints of a segregated society. In 1963, he published "The Fire Next Time," an arresting portrait of racial strife in which he held white America accountable, but he also went further, arguing that racism hurt white people too. In his view, everyone was inextricably enmeshed in the same social fabric. He had long believed that: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
同時, 民權運動在美國沸騰。 美國黑人在登記投票和投票上 都得到了一些進展, 但在許多地方仍然得不到 基本尊嚴,如學校裡、 公車上、工作時,和在服役時。 雖然包德溫的餘生 幾乎都在法國生活, 他對該運動卻投入相當多, 且非常清楚知道他的國家 沒有實現諾言。 他曾經見過他的家人、朋友、鄰居 被捲入毒癮、監禁, 和自殺的旋渦。 他認為他們的命運是由 種族隔離社會的限制所造成的。 1963 年, 他出版了《下一次將是烈火》, 對於種族衝突做了醒目的描述, 且把責任歸咎給美國白人, 但他還更進了一步, 主張種族主義也會傷害白人。 依他所見, 大家都被捲入同樣的 社會結構當中,沒人能逃離。 長年來他一直相信: 「人們被困在歷史中, 而歷史被困在他們當中。」
Baldwin’s role in the Civil Rights movement went beyond observing and reporting. He also traveled through the American South attending rallies giving lectures of his own. He debated both white politicians and black activists, including Malcolm X, and served as a liaison between black activists and intellectuals and white establishment leaders like Robert Kennedy. Because of Baldwin’s unique ability to articulate the causes of social turbulence in a way that white audiences were willing to hear, Kennedy and others tended to see him as an ambassador for black Americans — a label Baldwin rejected. And at the same time, his faculty with words led the FBI to view him as a threat. Even within the Civil Rights movement, Baldwin could sometimes feel like an outsider for his choice to live abroad, as well as his sexuality, which he explored openly in his writing at a time when homophobia ran rampant.
包德溫在民權運動中的角色 不只是觀察和報導。 他也旅行到美國南方, 參加集會,親自演講。 他和白人政治人物 及黑人行動主義者辯論, 包括麥爾坎 X, 並扮演黑人活動主義者和知識分子 與白人體制領導人之間聯絡橋樑, 如羅伯特甘迺迪。 包德溫有很獨特的能力, 能夠明確表達社會動亂的成因, 且讓白人觀眾也願意聽他說, 因此甘迺迪及其他人傾向 將他視為是美國黑人的大使—— 包德溫自己拒絕這個標籤。 同時, 他善用文字的技能 讓他被 FBI 視為威脅。 即使是在民權運動中, 包德溫有時也覺得 自己像是個外人, 原因是他選擇住在國外, 且身為同性戀, 他公開在他的作品中 談論了他的同性戀身分, 那時是對同性戀的仇恨 非常高漲的時代。
Throughout his life, Baldwin considered it his role to bear witness. Unlike many of his peers, he lived to see some of the victories of the Civil Rights movement, but the continuing racial inequalities in the United States weighed heavily on him. Though he may have felt trapped in his moment in history, his words have made generations of people feel known, while guiding them toward a more nuanced understanding of society’s most complex issues.
包德溫一生中都認為他必須 扮演目擊者的角色。 他和他大部分的同儕不同, 他在有生之年見到了 民權運動的一些勝利, 但在美國持續的種族不平等 壓得他喘不過氣。 雖然,他覺得他被困在 歷史上他的時代當中, 但他的文字讓數世代的人 感覺被認可, 同時引導他們更細微地了解 社會上最複雜的議題。