The Danger of a Single Story | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | TED

And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger危险 of the single story."

我想和大家分享几个关于“单一故事的危险性”的个人故事。

I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria.

我在尼日利亚东部的一个大学校园里长大。

My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth.

母亲说我两岁就开始读书，不过我觉得四岁左右可能更接近事实。

So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and American children's books.

所以我是个早慧的读者，读的都是英美儿童读物。

I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated有义务的/被迫的 to read,

我也是个早慧的写作者，大约七岁时开始用铅笔写作，配上蜡笔插图，可怜的母亲不得不读这些作品。

I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, (Laughter) and they talked a lot about

我写的正是我读的那种故事：所有角色都是白人、蓝眼睛，他们在雪地里玩耍，吃苹果（笑声），还大谈特谈……

the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out.

……天气，感叹太阳出来是多么美好。

(Laughter) Now, this despite尽管/不管 the fact that I lived in Nigeria.

然而，这发生在我住在尼日利亚的事实面前。

I had never been outside Nigeria.

我从未离开过尼日利亚。

We didn't have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.

我们没有雪，我们吃芒果，也从不谈论天气，因为根本没有必要。

My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer, because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer.

我的角色也喝很多姜汁汽水，因为我读的英国书里的角色都喝姜汁汽水。

Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was.

别管我当时根本不知道姜汁汽水是什么了。

(Laughter) And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate极度的/绝望的 desire to taste ginger beer.

在那之后的许多年里，我都极度渴望尝一口姜汁汽水。

But that is another story.

那是另一个故事了。

What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable易受影响的 and vulnerable脆弱的/易受伤害的 we are in the face of a story, particularly as children.

我认为，这证明了我们在面对故事时是多么容易受影响和脆弱，尤其是作为孩子的时候。

Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced坚信的/确信的 that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be

因为我只读过角色是外国人的书，我便深信书籍本质上必须包含外国人，且必须讲述我无法产生共鸣的事物。

about things with which I could not personally identify认同/产生共鸣.

……与个人经历无法产生共鸣的事物。

Now, things changed when I discovered African books.

后来，当我发现了非洲的书籍时，情况发生了变化。

There weren't many of them available, and they weren't quite as easy to find as the foreign books.

这些书的数量不多，而且不像外国书籍那么容易找到。

But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my perception认知/看法 of literature.

但得益于钦努阿·阿契贝和卡马拉·莱耶等作家，我对文学的认知发生了转变。

I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist存在 in literature.

我意识到，像我这样的人——皮肤像巧克力般的女孩，卷发扎不成马尾辫——也能存在于文学作品中。

I started to write about things I recognized.

我开始描写我熟悉的事物。

Now, I loved those American and British books I read.

当然，我依然喜爱那些我曾读过的英美书籍。

They stirred激起/唤起 my imagination.

它们激发了我的想象力。

They opened up new worlds for me.

它们为我开启了全新的世界。

But the unintended非故意的 consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature.

但意想不到的后果是，我并不知道像我们这样的人在文学作品中竟然存在。

So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are.

因此，发现非洲作家对我而言意味着：它让我免于只有一种关于书籍的单一故事。

I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family.

我来自一个传统的尼日利亚中产阶级家庭。

My father was a professor.

我的父亲是一位教授。