纪念拉尔夫·埃里森百年诞辰

Robert Siegle（Host）：Ralph Ellisons 1952 novel，“Invisible Man，” is a searing exploration of race and identity. It won the National Book Award and was named one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century by Time magazine and the Modern Library.

A monument outside 730 Riverside Drive in Harlem， Ellisons longtime home， lists his birth year as 1914. So do many biographical sources. In fact， he was born a year earlier. Still events in Oklahoma City， his birthplace， and New York City are celebrating Ellisons centennial this year. Tom Vitale has his appreciation of his life and work.

Tom Vitale （Byline）： 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard， Harlem. Ralph Ellison walked the streets in 1938 interviewing people for a history of African-Americans for the Federal Writers Project. Almost half a century later， Ellison told me that experience was essential in shaping the writer he became.

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Ralph Ellison： Some of those interviews affirmed the stories that I had heard from my elders as I grew up. They gave me a much richer sense of what the culture was. I might say it was like taking a course in history.

Vitale：The history of African-Americans in the first half of the 20th century provides the backdrop for his novel “Invisible Man.” The unnamed narrator grows up in the rural South， attends a prestigious black university， then travels north to Harlem where his first embrace and then rejected by leftist intellectuals. The novels opening lines reflect the themes that run throughout the story.

Gibran Muhammad：（reading） I am an invisible man. No， I am not a spook like those who haunted [1]Edgar Allan Poe， nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance， of flesh and bone， fiber and liquids. And I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible， understand， simply because people refuse to see me.

Vitale：The reader is Kahlil Gibran Muhammad， director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the great-grandson of the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammed. He says Ellisons treatment of race in the 1952 novel anticipated questions about the future of African-Americans that still resonate.

Muhammad：Whether we look at the invisibility of a[2]Trayvon Martin or the invisibility of a [3]Magic Johnson， in light of the most recent controversies over [4]Donald Sterling， or even the ways in which the contemporary art world for black visual artists turn on whether they have a responsibility to depict blackness through traditional narratives are all themes that Ralph Ellison brought to his work.

Vitale：To mark Ellisons centenary， the Schomburg Center in Harlem where the novelist did some of his research， presented a day of readings from “Invisible Man.”

Nelaja Muhammad：（reading） The whole of Harlem seemed to fall apart in the swirl of snow.

Vitale：17-year-old Nelaja Muhammed， who is no relation to the Schomburg director， read a scene in which the narrator buys a baked yam from the corner stand. And the aroma releases a Proustian flood of memories. Nelaja Muhammad， a high school junior who lives in Harlem says even though the book was written more than 60 years ago， its narrator endures the same challenges as African-Americans today.

Muhammad：If he wants other people to believe that hes his own person， he has to believe in it himself. So I kind of relate to that because everyone goes through struggles， everyone goes hardships， and at times people give up on themselves. But at that one moment where you realize that you are worth it， you have to be able to realize that youre not alone.

Vitale：Ralph Ellison drew on his own struggles to create“Invisible Man.” He was born in Oklahoma City to Lewis and Ida Ellison， who named him Ralph Waldo Ellison after the 19th-century American writer， [5]Emerson. When he was 3， his father died after an accident delivering ice to a grocery store.

Arnold Rampersad：I think the death of his father when he was 3 was the decisive event of his earlier life. Vitale：Arnold Rampersad is author of a 600-page biography of Ralph Ellison.

Rampersad：Because it plunged his family into poverty. Although he had influential， upstanding friends and patrons in his youth， he really was always aware that he had virtually nothing and was dependent on others.

Vitale：Rampersad says Ellison spent the rest of his life trying to redress his impoverished beginnings. He became something of a renaissance man， turning to sculpture， photography and music. He studied the cornet and then trumpet and piano. In 1933， he attended the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama intent on becoming a composer. 3 years later， he traveled to New York to earn money to pay his tuition. There he met writers [6]Langston Hughes and[7]Richard Wright.

Rampersad：He started late as a writer. He was 22 or so before Richard Wright turned to him one day and said， why dont you try a short story？ And he worked very hard over a period of seven years to produce a masterpiece. And he succeeded.

Vitale：In 1983， Ralph Ellison said he wasnt writing only about the black experience in “Invisible Man，” he was writing about the human experience.

（Soundbite of archived broadcast.）

Ellison：When I was a kid， I read the English novels. I read Russian translations and so on. And always. I was the hero. I identified with the hero. Literature is integrated， and Im not just talking about color or race. Im talking about the power of literature to make us recognize—and again and again—the wholeness of the human experience.

Vitale：“Invisible Man” was published to rave reviews in 1952. A year later， the novel won the National Book Award， beating out works by Ernest Hemmingway and John Steinbeck.

Muhammad：（reading） Being invisible and without substance—a disembodied voice， as it were—what else could I do？ What else but try to tell you what was really happening when your eyes were looking through？ And it is this which frightens me.

Vitale：After “Invisible Man，” Ralph Ellison spent the rest of his life working on a second novel. When he died from pancreatic cancer in 1994， he left behind 1，600 pages of an unfinished manuscript. It was eventually published under the title “Juneteenth.”

罗伯特·西格尔（主持人）：拉尔夫·埃里森于1952年发表的小说《看不见的人》是对种族和人性作出的震撼人心的探索。它曾赢得“国家图书奖”，被《时代》杂志和现代文库评为20世纪最好的100部小说之一。

（纽约市）哈莱姆区河滨快车道730号，曾是埃里森长期居住的地方，在这之外的一座纪念碑上刻着他的出生年份为1914年，如同众多传记资料上所记载的一样。事实上他早一年出生。今年，埃里森百年诞辰纪念活动在他的出生地俄克拉荷马市以及纽约市进行。汤姆·维达来接下来将评价埃里森的一生及其著作。

汤姆·维达来（记者）：（我现在在）哈莱姆区第135街马尔科姆爱克斯大道。1938年，拉尔夫·埃里森走在这些大街上采访人们，为的是完成联邦作家计划中关于非裔美国人历史的部分。差不多半个世纪之后，埃里森告诉我，那一经历对他成为作家影响深远。

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拉尔夫·埃里森：在我成长中从长辈那里听来的故事在其中一些采访中得到印证。它们让我对什么是文化有了更为丰富的认知。我可以说，它就像是在上一堂历史课。

维达来：20世纪前50年非裔美国人的历史为他的小说《看不见的人》提供了背景。（小说中）没有名字的叙述者在南部农村长大，上了一所颇有声望的黑人大学，之后一路向北来到哈莱姆区，一度被左派知识分子接纳而后拒绝。小说一开篇就映射出贯穿故事始末的主题。

纪伯伦·穆罕默德：（朗读）我是个你们看不见的人。不，我并非埃德加·艾伦·坡笔下神出鬼没的幽灵，也不是好莱坞电影中虚无缥缈的幻影。我是一个实实在在的人，有形有骸，有血有肉，甚至还可以说拥有心灵。要知道，别人看不见我，只是因为他们不愿意看到我。

维达来：朗读者是哈里利·纪伯伦·穆罕默德，他是尚博格黑人文化研究中心的负责人、伊斯兰国家派领袖伊利贾·穆罕默德的曾孙。他说埃里森1952年的小说对种族问题的态度预示了至今仍能使非裔美国人产生共鸣的问题。

穆罕默德：我们看到，无论是隐身的特雷沃恩·马丁还是“魔术师”约翰逊，或是根据最近唐纳德·斯特林引发的争议，或者甚至是黑人视觉艺术家开启了他们是否有责任遵循传统叙述来描写黑人的当代艺术世界，这些主题都在拉尔夫·埃里森的作品中得到体现。

维达来：埃里森曾在位于哈姆莱区的尚博格中心作过调研，为了纪念他的百年诞辰，这里举办了一天的《看不见的人》读书会。

内拉贾·穆罕默德：（朗读）整个哈姆莱区仿佛散落在纷纷扬扬的雪花中。

维达来：17岁的内拉贾·穆罕默德与尚博格中心负责人并非亲故，他朗读了叙述者在路边摊买烤红薯的一幕，扑鼻的香气触发了普鲁斯特式的回忆。内拉贾·穆罕默德是住在哈莱姆区的一个高中少年，他说，即使书中所描述的情节发生在60多年前，当中的叙述者忍受着和如今非裔美国人所承受的同样的挑战。

穆罕默德：若他想要别人相信他是一个实实在在存在的人，他就必须先相信他自己。因此我对这有些共鸣，因为每个人都曾奋斗过，每个人都会经历艰难的日子，有时放弃的恰恰是他们自己。但是在那时那刻，你要意识到你值得那么做，你就必须意识到你不是孤单一人。

维达来：拉尔夫·埃里森也是在他的奋斗中创作了《看不见的人》。他在俄克拉荷马市出生，是刘易斯·埃里森和艾達·埃里森的儿子，他们给他取名拉尔夫·沃尔多·埃里森，这名字来自于19世纪美国作家艾默生。3岁时，他父亲在运送冰块去杂货店路上的一场意外中丧生。

阿诺德·拉伯赛德：我认为3岁丧父是他早年的决定性事件。维达来：阿诺德·拉伯赛德是长达600页的拉尔夫·埃里森传记的作者。

拉伯赛德：因为这使他的家庭一下陷入拮据之中。尽管年轻时有一些有权势的、正直的朋友和赞助人，他总是铭记着自己实际上一无所有，需要靠别人的资助度日。

维达来：拉伯赛德说埃里森余生都在努力改变贫穷的出身。他成为一个多才多艺的人，会雕刻、摄影和音乐。他学短号，后来又学小号和钢琴。1933年他考入阿拉巴马州的塔斯基吉学院想要成为一名作曲家。3年后，他到纽约挣学费，在那儿，他结识了作家兰斯顿·休斯和理查德·赖特。

拉伯赛德：他是个大器晚成的作家。大约22岁那年的一天，理查德找到他说，为什么你不试试写短故事？他笔耕不辍，花了7年时间完成了一部杰作。他做到了。

维达来：1983年，拉尔夫·埃里森说《看不见的人》不仅仅是写黑人的经历，而是写人类的经历。

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埃里森：当我还是个孩子时，我就阅读英文小说，阅读俄语翻译版本等等，并且一直在阅读。我是英雄，我对英雄感同身受。文学是个整体，我不只是在说肤色或是种族，我是在说文学的力量，让我们认识到，不断地认识到整个人类的经历。

维达来：《看不见的人》在1952年发表后好评如潮。一年后，该小说一举击败欧内斯特·海明威和约翰·斯坦贝克的作品，赢得了“国家图书奖”。

穆罕默德：（朗读）别人看不见我，不是个实实在在的人——一如既往空洞的声音在回响——我还能做什么？除了当你双眼一扫而过时告诉你真真切切发生的一切，我还能做什么？这也是我所畏惧的。

维达来：发表《看不见的人》之后，拉尔夫·埃里森余生都在创作第二部小说。1994年，他因胰脏癌去世，留下了长达1600页未完成的作品遗稿，最终（由其遗产执行人John Callahan整理加工出版的）以《六月庆典》为书名面世。

注：

[1] Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加·艾伦·坡，19世纪美国诗人、小说家和文学评论家，以神秘故事和恐怖小说闻名于世。

[2] Trayvon Martin 特雷沃恩·马丁，美国迈阿密地区的一名黑人高中生，17岁时被枪击身亡，随后警察当局对行凶者的延迟拘捕和法律的正义在美国和国际社会引起广泛关注。

[3] Magic Johnson “魔术师”约翰逊，本名埃尔文·约翰逊，NBA洛杉矶湖人队的传奇后卫。

[4] Donald Sterling 唐纳德·斯特林，NBA洛杉矶快船队老板，曾流出含有大量种族歧视言论的录音带。

[5] Emerson 全名拉尔夫·沃尔多·艾默生（Ralph Waldo Emerson），美国思想家、诗人，被称为“美国文明之父”。

[6] Langston Hughes 兰斯顿·休斯，美国黑人作家、诗人，被称为“美国黑人的桂冠诗人”。

[7] Richard Wright 理查德·賴特，美国黑人作家。