I'm a storyteller. That's what I do in life -- telling stories, writing novels -- and today I would like to tell you a few stories about the art of storytelling and also some supernatural creatures called the djinni. But before I go there, please allow me to share with you glimpses of my personal story. I will do so with the help of words, of course, but also a geometrical shape, the circle, so throughout my talk, you will come across several circles.
我是作家 我的工作就是說故事 寫小說 今天我要告訴你們 說故事的藝術 以及一種超自然生物 精靈 在那之前,我想與各位分享 我自己的一些故事 除了用話語分享 我也用圓形來比喻 我的演說中 我們會提到幾個圓形
I was born in Strasbourg, France to Turkish parents. Shortly after, my parents got separated, and I came to Turkey with my mom. From then on, I was raised as a single child by a single mother. Now in the early 1970s, in Ankara, that was a bit unusual. Our neighborhood was full of large families, where fathers were the heads of households, so I grew up seeing my mother as a divorcee in a patriarchal environment. In fact, I grew up observing two different kinds of womanhood. On the one hand was my mother, a well-educated, secular, modern, westernized, Turkish woman. On the other hand was my grandmother, who also took care of me and was more spiritual, less educated and definitely less rational. This was a woman who read coffee grounds to see the future and melted lead into mysterious shapes to fend off the evil eye.
我在法國史特拉斯堡出生 父母是土耳其人 不久之後,我父母分居 我跟著媽媽到了土耳其 所以我是個 單親家庭的孩子 在1970年早期的安卡拉 是很不尋常的 鄰居都是大家庭 一家之主是父親 在這種父權社會 我和離婚的媽媽一起生活 我的童年 有兩個女人做榜樣 一個是我媽媽 受良好教育、西方思想、現代的土耳其女性 一個是照顧我 的外婆 虔誠的、教育程度較低、 較迷信的傳統女性 她會咖啡渣算命 將溶化的鉛弄成神秘的圖案 來防禦邪惡之眼
Many people visited my grandmother, people with severe acne on their faces or warts on their hands. Each time, my grandmother would utter some words in Arabic, take a red apple and stab it with as many rose thorns as the number of warts she wanted to remove. Then one by one, she would encircle these thorns with dark ink. A week later, the patient would come back for a follow-up examination. Now, I'm aware that I should not be saying such things in front of an audience of scholars and scientists, but the truth is, of all the people who visited my grandmother for their skin conditions, I did not see anyone go back unhappy or unhealed. I asked her how she did this. Was it the power of praying? In response she said, "Yes, praying is effective, but also beware of the power of circles."
很多人會來找我祖母 臉上有嚴重痘痘的人 手上有疣的人 每次,我祖母都會念一串阿拉伯文 然後拿與痘痘同數量的 玫瑰刺, 來刺一顆紅蘋果 一個接一個 她會用黑墨水,在花刺周圍畫圈 一週後,病人會回來 複檢 我知道我在一群學者、科學家面前 講這種事很傻 但事實上, 上門的病人 沒有一個回家的時候 是不開心、沒有痊癒的 我問祖母她怎麼做的,是因為禱告嗎? 她回答我,禱告是很有效的一種方法 但也別低估圓形的力量
From her, I learned, amongst many other things, one very precious lesson -- that if you want to destroy something in this life, be it an acne, a blemish or the human soul, all you need to do is to surround it with thick walls. It will dry up inside. Now we all live in some kind of a social and cultural circle. We all do. We're born into a certain family, nation, class. But if we have no connection whatsoever with the worlds beyond the one we take for granted, then we too run the risk of drying up inside. Our imagination might shrink; our hearts might dwindle, and our humanness might wither if we stay for too long inside our cultural cocoons. Our friends, neighbors, colleagues, family -- if all the people in our inner circle resemble us, it means we are surrounded with our mirror image.
從她身上,我學到很多東西 特別珍貴的一課是 如果你想消滅某個東西 痘痘也好、髒污也好 甚至是靈魂 你只要將其以厚牆圍繞 它就會消逝在裡面 我們都生活在某種社交、文化圈中 每個人都是 出生於某個家庭、國家、階級 如果我們視為理所當然的世界之間 都沒有交集 我們也面對 消逝的危險 我們會失去想像力 心胸變得狹隘 人性將枯萎 如果在自己的 文化圈內待太久 我們的朋友、鄰居、同事、家人 如果圈圈中的人都跟自己一樣 這表示我們被自己的表象 圍繞著
Now one other thing women like my grandma do in Turkey is to cover mirrors with velvet or to hang them on the walls with their backs facing out. It's an old Eastern tradition based on the knowledge that it's not healthy for a human being to spend too much time staring at his own reflection. Ironically, [living in] communities of the like-minded is one of the greatest dangers of today's globalized world. And it's happening everywhere, among liberals and conservatives, agnostics and believers, the rich and the poor, East and West alike. We tend to form clusters based on similarity, and then we produce stereotypes about other clusters of people. In my opinion, one way of transcending these cultural ghettos is through the art of storytelling. Stories cannot demolish frontiers, but they can punch holes in our mental walls. And through those holes, we can get a glimpse of the other, and sometimes even like what we see.
另一件像我祖母一樣的土耳其女人會做的事 就是用絨布蓋鏡子 或是將反面掛在牆上 這是古老的東方傳統 他們相信 人常常盯著自己看 是不健康的 諷刺的是,現在的全球化社會 面對最大的危險就是 太相似的社群 到處都看得到 不論自由派或保守派 不論是無神論者或信徒、窮人或有錢人 東西方皆同 我們和與自己相像的人 形成小圈圈 再來開始對其他小圈圈的人 產生刻板印象 我認為,超越這些文化圈 唯一的方式 就是透過故事的述說 故事無法破壞邊境 但可以在心牆上打洞 透過這些洞,我們得以一瞥他人 甚至欣賞我們所看見的東西
I started writing fiction at the age of eight. My mother came home one day with a turquoise notebook and asked me if I'd be interested in keeping a personal journal. In retrospect, I think she was slightly worried about my sanity. I was constantly telling stories at home, which was good, except I told this to imaginary friends around me, which was not so good. I was an introverted child, to the point of communicating with colored crayons and apologizing to objects when I bumped into them, so my mother thought it might do me good to write down my day-to-day experiences and emotions. What she didn't know was that I thought my life was terribly boring, and the last thing I wanted to do was to write about myself. Instead, I began to write about people other than me and things that never really happened. And thus began my life-long passion for writing fiction. So from the very beginning, fiction for me was less of an autobiographical manifestation than a transcendental journey into other lives, other possibilities. And please bear with me: I'll draw a circle and come back to this point.
我八歲就開始寫小說 我媽有天回家 帶了本土耳其藍的筆記本給我 讓我寫日記 後來回想,她應該是擔心 我精神不正常 因為我常常會說故事,這是好事 但我都說給「想像的朋友」聽 這就不太妙了 我小時候很內向 會跟蠟筆講話 撞到東西的時候 還會跟它們道歉 所以我媽覺得讓我寫日記 寫下發生的事、每天的心情 是不錯的 她所不知道的是 我覺得我的生活很無趣 我最不想做的事情 就是寫下關於我自己的事 所以我開始寫我身邊的人 和一些虛構的故事 後來寫小說 成為我一生的熱愛 一開始,小說對我而言 只是一種,自己以外的東西 而不是冒險的旅程、 其他的生活、其他的可能 各位請包容我 我畫了個圈圈,等一下再回到這個點上
Now one other thing happened around this same time. My mother became a diplomat. So from this small, superstitious, middle-class neighborhood of my grandmother, I was zoomed into this posh, international school [in Madrid], where I was the only Turk. It was here that I had my first encounter with what I call the "representative foreigner." In our classroom, there were children from all nationalities, yet this diversity did not necessarily lead to a cosmopolitan, egalitarian classroom democracy. Instead, it generated an atmosphere in which each child was seen -- not as an individual on his own, but as the representative of something larger. We were like a miniature United Nations, which was fun, except whenever something negative, with regards to a nation or a religion, took place. The child who represented it was mocked, ridiculed and bullied endlessly. And I should know, because during the time I attended that school, a military takeover happened in my country, a gunman of my nationality nearly killed the Pope, and Turkey got zero points in [the] Eurovision Song Contest. (Laughter)
這段期間,發生了另一件事 就是我母親當上外交官 我從這個迷信、 祖母家附近這中產階級的小街坊 到了馬德里 一所光鮮亮麗的國際學校 我是唯一的土耳其人 那裡,我首次了解 「外國代表」這個觀念 教室中,每個孩子都來自不同國家 這種多樣性, 並沒有消除偏見、平等 教室並不民主 孩子們變成 不只是獨立的個體 而是代表 更大的東西、概念 有點像是迷你聯合國,其實很好玩 除了有時候提到負面的形象 像是講到國家 或是宗教的時候 來自那個國家的孩子 就會被取笑、欺負 我特別了解是因為 當時土耳其正經歷軍事接收 一名土耳其槍手差點殺死教宗 所以土耳其在《歐洲歌唱大賽》掛鴨蛋 (笑聲)
I skipped school often and dreamed of becoming a sailor during those days. I also had my first taste of cultural stereotypes there. The other children asked me about the movie "Midnight Express," which I had not seen; they inquired how many cigarettes a day I smoked, because they thought all Turks were heavy smokers, and they wondered at what age I would start covering my hair. I came to learn that these were the three main stereotypes about my country: politics, cigarettes and the veil. After Spain, we went to Jordan, Germany and Ankara again. Everywhere I went, I felt like my imagination was the only suitcase I could take with me. Stories gave me a sense of center, continuity and coherence, the three big Cs that I otherwise lacked.
我常翹課,然後就會幻想 水手的生活 這也是我第一次 了解什麼是刻板印象 其他小孩會問我有沒有看過 土耳其電影《午夜快車》 他們會問我一天抽多少菸 因為他們覺得土耳其人都是大菸槍 他們也很好奇 我幾歲要開始戴頭巾 所以我學到 關於土耳其的三種刻板印象 政治、香菸 和面紗 離開西班牙後我們還去過約旦、德國 然後回到安卡拉 遊歷各國後,我覺得 我的想像力就像只皮箱 隨時可以帶著走 故事給我一種中心(center)、 連續性(continuity )、凝聚力(coherence) 我無法缺少的3C
In my mid-twenties, I moved to Istanbul, the city I adore. I lived in a very vibrant, diverse neighborhood where I wrote several of my novels. I was in Istanbul when the earthquake hit in 1999. When I ran out of the building at three in the morning, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. There was the local grocer there -- a grumpy, old man who didn't sell alcohol and didn't speak to marginals. He was sitting next to a transvestite with a long black wig and mascara running down her cheeks. I watched the man open a pack of cigarettes with trembling hands and offer one to her, and that is the image of the night of the earthquake in my mind today -- a conservative grocer and a crying transvestite smoking together on the sidewalk. In the face of death and destruction, our mundane differences evaporated, and we all became one even if for a few hours. But I've always believed that stories, too, have a similar effect on us. I'm not saying that fiction has the magnitude of an earthquake, but when we are reading a good novel, we leave our small, cozy apartments behind, go out into the night alone and start getting to know people we had never met before and perhaps had even been biased against.
我25、26歲時,搬到伊斯坦堡 我很喜歡的地方 我住在個很有活力、多元文化的街坊 我在那寫了許多本小說 1999年伊斯坦堡大地震時 我就在那 凌晨三點我急忙跑出公寓 但我看著眼前的景象,我便停下腳步 我看見一個雜貨店老闆 這脾氣暴躁的老人不賣酒 也不跟邊緣人說話 但他當時,坐在一個 戴著長黑髮 睫毛膏哭花在臉上的變裝癖旁邊 我看著這男人用顫抖的手 拆了包菸 並遞一支給她 那晚地震的那一幕 我始終忘不了 一個保守的雜貨店老闆與哭泣的變裝癖 一同坐在人行道旁抽菸 面對死亡及毀壞 我們最基本的差異消失無蹤 我們成為相同的 即使幾小時也好 我一直相信故事也有相同作用 我並不是說小說像地震一樣強大 但當我們讀本好書時 我們忘記狹小卻舒適的公寓 像是在夜晚單獨走在街上 認識從未見過的人 甚至是我們先前有所偏見的人
Shortly after, I went to a women's college in Boston, then Michigan. I experienced this, not so much as a geographical shift, as a linguistic one. I started writing fiction in English. I'm not an immigrant, refugee or exile -- they ask me why I do this -- but the commute between languages gives me the chance to recreate myself. I love writing in Turkish, which to me is very poetic and very emotional, and I love writing in English, which to me is very mathematical and cerebral. So I feel connected to each language in a different way. For me, like millions of other people around the world today, English is an acquired language. When you're a latecomer to a language, what happens is you live there with a continuous and perpetual frustration. As latecomers, we always want to say more, you know, crack better jokes, say better things, but we end up saying less because there's a gap between the mind and the tongue. And that gap is very intimidating. But if we manage not to be frightened by it, it's also stimulating. And this is what I discovered in Boston -- that frustration was very stimulating.
不久後, 我到波士頓及密西根的女子大學就讀 這經驗不是地理上的轉變 而是語言上的 我開始用英文寫小說 我並非移民、難民、或在逃亡 他們問我為什麼 但兩種語言的轉換間 給了我另一個機會,重新創造自己 我愛用土耳其文寫作 對我而言,富有詩意又感性 我也愛用英文寫作 因為它精確又理智 我對這兩種語言的感受是很不同的 對我而言,以及全世界 幾百萬人一樣 英文是第二語言 當你學習新語言的時候 常常會遇到的情況 就是那種 永不停止的挫折感 學習語言,我們總想多說點、 想講好笑的笑話、有趣的事 但說出來的通常不是如此 因為腦子與嘴巴有距離 這種距離是很可怕的 但是如果我們努力不被它嚇到 它可以是種刺激 這是我在波士頓所發現的 挫折就是刺激
At this stage, my grandmother, who had been watching the course of my life with increasing anxiety, started to include in her daily prayers that I urgently get married so that I could settle down once and for all. And because God loves her, I did get married. (Laughter) But instead of settling down, I went to Arizona. And since my husband is in Istanbul, I started commuting between Arizona and Istanbul -- the two places on the surface of earth that couldn't be more different. I guess one part of me has always been a nomad, physically and spiritually. Stories accompany me, keeping my pieces and memories together, like an existential glue.
這時候,我祖母 替我這樣的生活 感到很憂心 她開始每天禱告 希望我快點嫁出去 這樣我才能安定下來 因為上帝愛她,我後來真的結婚了 (笑聲) 不過我沒有定下來 我到了亞利桑那州 因為我丈夫人在伊斯坦堡 我開始兩地往返 同在地球上,這兩個地方 差別太大了 我想我有游牧民族因子吧 身體上或精神上都是 故事陪伴著我 像個膠水一樣 將我的記憶黏起來
Yet as much as I love stories, recently, I've also begun to think that they lose their magic if and when a story is seen as more than a story. And this is a subject that I would love to think about together. When my first novel written in English came out in America, I heard an interesting remark from a literary critic. "I liked your book," he said, "but I wish you had written it differently." (Laughter) I asked him what he meant by that. He said, "Well, look at it. There's so many Spanish, American, Hispanic characters in it, but there's only one Turkish character and it's a man." Now the novel took place on a university campus in Boston, so to me, it was normal that there be more international characters in it than Turkish characters, but I understood what my critic was looking for. And I also understood that I would keep disappointing him. He wanted to see the manifestation of my identity. He was looking for a Turkish woman in the book because I happened to be one.
雖然我愛故事 最近我卻開始覺得 當故事變得不只是個故事 他們就失去了魔力 我希望跟各位 分享這個想法 當我第一本英文小說在美國出版 我聽到了一個有趣的評論 他說:「我喜歡你的書 但我不喜歡妳呈現的方法。」 (笑聲) 我請他解釋清楚一點 他說:「你書中有一堆」 「西班牙人、美國人、拉丁美洲裔的角色」 「卻只有一個土耳其人,還是個男的。」 因為小說背景是波士頓的一所大學校園 國際學生數量 比土耳其學生多 是很正常的 但我了解評論家要的是什麼 我也了解到 他會一直對我的小說失望 他想看的是我身份的呈現 他想在書中讀到土耳其女人角色 因為我是土耳其女人
We often talk about how stories change the world, but we should also see how the world of identity politics affects the way stories are being circulated, read and reviewed. Many authors feel this pressure, but non-Western authors feel it more heavily. If you're a woman writer from the Muslim world, like me, then you are expected to write the stories of Muslim women and, preferably, the unhappy stories of unhappy Muslim women. You're expected to write informative, poignant and characteristic stories and leave the experimental and avant-garde to your Western colleagues. What I experienced as a child in that school in Madrid is happening in the literary world today. Writers are not seen as creative individuals on their own, but as the representatives of their respective cultures: a few authors from China, a few from Turkey, a few from Nigeria. We're all thought to have something very distinctive, if not peculiar.
我們常講到故事如何改變世界 但我們也應該知道世界上的身分政治 是如何影響故事 如何解讀故事 如何看待故事 很多作者皆承受如此壓力 特別是那些非西方作者 如果你像我一樣是伊斯蘭社會的女作家 那大家就期望你寫出 伊斯蘭女人的故事 寫不開心的伊斯蘭女人 背後不開心的故事更好 大家期望你寫 含帶訊息、激烈、人物性格鮮明的故事 其他試驗性的、前衛的故事 就讓其他西方作家來寫就好 我小時候在馬德里的經驗 現在的文學社會也發生著 作者不再被視為 單獨富創意的個體 而是他們文化 的代表 一些中國作家、土耳其作家 奈及利亞作家 大家想從我們的作品裡看到的,是奇特 是與眾不同
The writer and commuter James Baldwin gave an interview in 1984 in which he was repeatedly asked about his homosexuality. When the interviewer tried to pigeonhole him as a gay writer, Baldwin stopped and said, "But don't you see? There's nothing in me that is not in everybody else, and nothing in everybody else that is not in me." When identity politics tries to put labels on us, it is our freedom of imagination that is in danger. There's a fuzzy category called multicultural literature in which all authors from outside the Western world are lumped together. I never forget my first multicultural reading, in Harvard Square about 10 years ago. We were three writers, one from the Philippines, one Turkish and one Indonesian -- like a joke, you know. (Laughter) And the reason why we were brought together was not because we shared an artistic style or a literary taste. It was only because of our passports. Multicultural writers are expected to tell real stories, not so much the imaginary. A function is attributed to fiction. In this way, not only the writers themselves, but also their fictional characters become the representatives of something larger.
詹姆斯.鮑德溫 1984年的一場訪問 訪問中,他被重複問到他的同性戀傾向 訪問者硬要他 作出回應 鮑德溫便回答他 「你不明白嗎?我身上所擁有的」 「其他人也有;」 「其他人所擁有的」 「我身上也有」 當身份政治將我們貼上標籤 我們想像力的自由便有了危險 有個模糊的分類叫做 多元文化文學 基本上就是,西方以外國家的作者 被歸類在一起 我從未忘記我十年前在波士頓哈佛廣場 所參加的多元文化文學讀書會 我們共有三位作家,一個是菲律賓籍 一個土耳其籍,一個印尼籍 像個笑話一樣 (笑聲) 但我們相聚的原因 並不是我們作品類似 文學喜好類似 而是因為我們的護照 大家期望多元文化作家寫出真實故事 想像力就不必了 小說被賦予了一個功能 因此,不只是作者本身 連小說中虛構人物 也都代表了更大的東西
But I must quickly add that this tendency to see a story as more than a story does not solely come from the West. It comes from everywhere. And I experienced this firsthand when I was put on trial in 2005 for the words my fictional characters uttered in a novel. I had intended to write a constructive, multi-layered novel about an Armenian and a Turkish family through the eyes of women. My micro story became a macro issue when I was prosecuted. Some people criticized, others praised me for writing about the Turkish-Armenian conflict. But there were times when I wanted to remind both sides that this was fiction. It was just a story. And when I say, "just a story," I'm not trying to belittle my work. I want to love and celebrate fiction for what it is, not as a means to an end.
我必須補充 這種「故事不只是故事」的想法 不只有在西方世界看得到 而是世界各地都如此 我在2005的一次親身經歷 當時我在法庭上受審 原因是我小說中角色所說的一些話 我本來想寫 結構上多層次 關於亞美尼亞與土耳其家庭的小說 用女性觀點來寫 我的小故事成了大話題 後來我被起訴了 有人批評、有人讚美 我書中土耳其與亞美尼亞衝突的內容 但好幾次,我都想告訴這些人 這是虛構的 只是故事而已 當我說:「只是故事而已」 我並不是貶低自己的作品 我熱愛、頌揚文學 是因它的本質 而不是為特定目的
Writers are entitled to their political opinions, and there are good political novels out there, but the language of fiction is not the language of daily politics. Chekhov said, "The solution to a problem and the correct way of posing the question are two completely separate things. And only the latter is an artist's responsibility." Identity politics divides us. Fiction connects. One is interested in sweeping generalizations. The other, in nuances. One draws boundaries. The other recognizes no frontiers. Identity politics is made of solid bricks. Fiction is flowing water.
作家當然有自己的政治傾向 現在也有很多不錯的政治小說 但小說的語言 並非政治的語言 契訶夫說過 「問題的解決方法」 「與問題的呈現方法」 「是全然不同的兩件事」 「但只有後者,是藝術家的責任」 身分政治分裂我們,小說連結我們 一個是一概而論 一個是些微差別 一個劃分隔閡 一個消除分界 身分政治就像厚牆 小說就像流水
In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called "meddah." They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, impersonating that character. Everybody could go and listen, you know -- ordinary people, even the sultan, Muslims and non-Muslims. Stories cut across all boundaries, like "The Tales of Nasreddin Hodja," which were very popular throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and Asia. Today, stories continue to transcend borders. When Palestinian and Israeli politicians talk, they usually don't listen to each other, but a Palestinian reader still reads a novel by a Jewish author, and vice versa, connecting and empathizing with the narrator. Literature has to take us beyond. If it cannot take us there, it is not good literature.
奧圖曼時期,有種遊歷各國的人 叫做說書人(邁達赫) 他們會去茶館 對著一群觀眾說故事 即興說書 為表現書中不同人物 說書人會利用不同的聲音 來表現人物的變化 大家都會去看說書人表演 不論是普羅大眾、蘇丹王 回教徒、或非回教徒 故事消弭隔閡 就像《土耳其智者荷加的故事》 這本在中東、北非、巴爾幹、亞洲 大家都熟知的故事一樣 今日,故事依然 超越邊界 當巴勒斯坦與以色列政治家發表言論 他們通常都不聽彼此的內容 但當一個巴勒斯坦讀者 讀著猶太作家的小說時 他們對於敘述者,產生連結 產生同理心 文學必須帶領我們超越自我 如果沒辦法如此 那就不是好的文學
Books have saved the introverted, timid child that I was -- that I once was. But I'm also aware of the danger of fetishizing them. When the poet and mystic, Rumi, met his spiritual companion, Shams of Tabriz, one of the first things the latter did was to toss Rumi's books into water and watch the letters dissolve. The Sufis say, "Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance." The problem with today's cultural ghettos is not lack of knowledge -- we know a lot about each other, or so we think -- but knowledge that takes us not beyond ourselves: it makes us elitist, distant and disconnected. There's a metaphor which I love: living like a drawing compass. As you know, one leg of the compass is static, rooted in a place. Meanwhile, the other leg draws a wide circle, constantly moving. Like that, my fiction as well. One part of it is rooted in Istanbul, with strong Turkish roots, but the other part travels the world, connecting to different cultures. In that sense, I like to think of my fiction as both local and universal, both from here and everywhere.
書拯救了小時候那個 內向、膽小的我 但我也明白 盲目閱讀的危險 當神秘的詩人魯米 遇到他的精神伴侶沙姆士時 沙姆士做的第一件事就是 就是將魯米的書丟到河裡 看著墨水在水中化開 魯米說:「擁有無法超越自我的知識」 「還不如無知」 今日文化圈的問題 並不是缺乏知識 我們了解彼此 或只是我們自以為了解彼此 但那無法超越自我的知識 變成精英文化 彼此隔絕,產生距離 有個我很喜歡的比喻 生活就像是圓規 一隻腳站穩在定點 同時,另一隻腳 向外畫出一個能任意擴大的圓 我的小說也像那樣 一隻腳在伊斯坦堡 有著土耳其深根 但另一隻旅遊世界 與各文化連結著 這樣來解釋,我想我的小說 既本土又多元 並無限延伸
Now those of you who have been to Istanbul have probably seen Topkapi Palace, which was the residence of Ottoman sultans for more than 400 years. In the palace, just outside the quarters of the favorite concubines, there's an area called The Gathering Place of the Djinn. It's between buildings. I'm intrigued by this concept. We usually distrust those areas that fall in between things. We see them as the domain of supernatural creatures like the djinn, who are made of smokeless fire and are the symbol of elusiveness. But my point is perhaps that elusive space is what writers and artists need most. When I write fiction I cherish elusiveness and changeability. I like not knowing what will happen 10 pages later. I like it when my characters surprise me. I might write about a Muslim woman in one novel, and perhaps it will be a very happy story, and in my next book, I might write about a handsome, gay professor in Norway. As long as it comes from our hearts, we can write about anything and everything.
有去過土耳其的人 一定參觀過托普卡比宮殿 鄂圖曼帝國的王室 在那住過超過400年 宮殿裡,寵妃的房間外 一個角落 被稱為精靈的集聚地 就在每棟建築物間 我迷上這個概念 我們通常都不信任 這種中間地帶 我們將那種地方 視為超自然生物,像是精靈 會突然冒出一陣白煙似的 是難以捉摸的象徵 但我認為 這種難以捉摸之地 正是小說家、藝術家所需要的 當我寫小說 我喜歡那種難以捉摸、多變性 我喜歡那種不曉得十頁之後 故事會如何發展的感覺 我喜歡我的角色帶給我的驚喜 我可能一本小說 寫穆斯林女人 很開心的故事 下一本小說,我可能會寫 一個挪威的帥哥同性戀教授 只要這些故事是發自內心 沒有什麼是不能寫的
Audre Lorde once said, "The white fathers taught us to say, 'I think, therefore I am.'" She suggested, "I feel, therefore I am free." I think it was a wonderful paradigm shift. And yet, why is it that, in creative writing courses today, the very first thing we teach students is "write what you know"? Perhaps that's not the right way to start at all. Imaginative literature is not necessarily about writing who we are or what we know or what our identity is about. We should teach young people and ourselves to expand our hearts and write what we can feel. We should get out of our cultural ghetto and go visit the next one and the next.
奧黛蘿德曾說: 「白衣神父教導我們 我思故我在。」 但她認為應該是:「我感受所以我自由」 這是很美妙的轉變 那為什麼 現在的創意寫作課裡 我們教學生的第一件事 會是寫「自己所知」呢? 也許一開始根本不該這樣教 想像文學並非是 寫自己、或自己所知 或自己的身分 我們應該教育自己以及下一代 開放心胸 寫出自己的感受 我們應該走出自己的文化圈 探訪他人的世界
In the end, stories move like whirling dervishes, drawing circles beyond circles. They connect all humanity, regardless of identity politics, and that is the good news. And I would like to finish with an old Sufi poem: "Come, let us be friends for once; let us make life easy on us; let us be lovers and loved ones; the earth shall be left to no one."
最終,故事也能像遊歷的僧侶 不斷地向外畫圈 他們結合人性 而非身分政治 這是件好事 最後我想以一首古詩作結 「來,讓我們做朋友,」 「讓我們生活快樂點,」 「讓我們彼此相愛,」 「如此世界將不會孤單。」
Thank you.
謝謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)