Source of this article: Time Weekly Author: Li Guang
Usually the first Thursday in October is the opening day of the Nobel Prize in Literature every year. After a week of delay this year, the prize was awarded to Abdul-Rasak Gürna, a Writer of Tanzanian descent living in the UK.
The Nobel jury assessed Gürna for his uncompromising and compassionate insight into the impact of colonialism and the fate of refugees between culture and the continental divide.
Previously, the forecast agency determined that this year's literary awards would not be awarded to poetry and European and American writers, and Haruki Murakami should climb to the top of the odds list. No one expected that in the end, it would be Gürna who focused on refugee issues.
Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Africa seems to be in an awkward position. The last person to link the two was the American writer Ernest Hemingway, who won one of the masterpieces that won him the prize in 1954, called The Snow of Kilimanjaro.
In Hemingway's time, entering Africa was to purify the soul; by Gürna, the theme had changed to going out of Africa. From this point of view, although the basis of the Nobel Prize is deeply rooted in the times, it is still not separated from the theme of thinking about the human situation.
The Nobel Prize selection site showcases Gurna's books
"Prank"
As the official interviewer for the Nobel Prize, Adam Smith hung up on Gulner after unveiling the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature on October 7. He said to Gürner: Your life will change dramatically at once, like a flood coming.
Gulner knew what the Nobel Prize meant, but he assured Smith that he would be able to handle it.
Looking back at Gunnar's life experience, one will find that compared with the changes in life caused by the Nobel Prize, the flood of life and spiritual changes has made people toss and turn.
Born in 1948 on the Island of Zanzibar, Tanzania, Gurna emigrated to England in 1968 to escape civil unrest. It was this year that British Conservative MP Powell delivered the infamous "River of Blood" speech. These speeches later formed "Powellism", which mainly included the idea of demanding that The United Kingdom stop the influx of colored immigrants, encourage colored immigrants to move outward, and believe that different races cannot integrate.
For Gurna, who had just arrived in England, the exile of the mind seemed a foregone conclusion.
In 1976, Gurna graduated from the University of London, returned to Africa in 1980 to teach, and at the same time studied for a doctorate at the University of Kent, england, and after obtaining a degree two years later, Gurna went to the United Kingdom again and taught English and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Kent, teaching "Colonial and Postcolonial Discourse".
Gürner will receive a prize of SEK 10 million
If writing is a mirror of the mind, then looking at Gunnar's work, you will find that his spiritual journey also reflects the pain and identity crisis brought by colonialism.
When English literary critics talk about Gürner, they will say that his works have aroused the ambivalence of readers, on the one hand, they are dissatisfied with and even hated some unsatisfactory places in the African homeland, so immigrants hope to find spiritual sustenance in Britain; but because the imprint of African cultural roots is difficult to erase, and the xenophobic mentality of British society, immigrants are also difficult to integrate into British society, so they have to find buried memories in addition to pain to soothe sorrow, so as to find a balance between the past, reality and memory.
Almost all of the nearly 10 novels published before and after Gurna describe the story of African immigrants, with the sixth novel, "The Seashore," as an example, about an old man who arrived in London's island of Zanzibar (Gürner's hometown) at the end of the last century and could only speak "Asyl" (political asylum) in English. After obtaining the permit, the old man's experience attracted the attention of east African cultural experts at the University of London and wanted to help the old man, but the old man said: "There is no need for that." ”
The novel consists of six chapters and presents the recent history of Zanzibar in the form of dialogues and memories.
For writers who have always portrayed their own identity, Gulner won the Nobel Prize in Literature unexpectedly, but so far, no one has questioned whether Gurna deserves it.
In response to a telephone interview with Smith, Gürner said he initially thought it was a prank.
Snow in Kilimanjaro
In a phone call with Smith, Gürner said the influx of Europeans into the world is nothing new, a phenomenon that has been around for centuries, but that Africans coming to Europe "I think is a relatively new phenomenon." ”
Hemingway, who is well known to Chinese readers, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, and one of his masterpieces, "The Snow of Kilimanjaro", depicts the story of a European couple who travel to East Africa to hunt.
Kilimanjaro, on the other hand, is the highest peak in Gulna's hometown of Tanzania (and throughout Africa).
In The Snow of Kilimanjaro, Hemingway describes the writer Harry going hunting in Africa, and he thinks that he can revive (writing ability) by training in this way, removing the fat he has accumulated in his mind, just like a boxer goes deep into the mountains to get rid of the fat in his body.
In 1952, Hemingway visited Kenya, Africa, and wrote The Snow of Kilimanjaro.
In Hemingway's time, entering Africa in search of spiritual comfort could win the Nobel Prize, but now, works representing the entry of Africans into Europe have become the focus of the Nobel Prize. This change also reflects the change in the evaluation standards of the Nobel Prize in the past 100 years.
The first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 1901, and according to the original intention of the prize, the key to its selection was "idealistic tendencies", such as the first winner of the French writer Prudhoven's "Loneliness and Deep Thought", which was evaluated as "noble ideals, perfect art and empirical evidence of the heart and wisdom contained." ”
At that time, European capitalism entered a stage of stable development, and the requirements of literature were elegance and norms, and the pursuit of showing the truth, goodness, and beauty of human beings was essentially a manifestation of European "idealism".
After the end of World War II, the Nobel Prize judges began to pay attention to writers who dared to innovate, such as those who reflected on the distortion and alienation of the human mind from the perspective of ugliness, of which Hemingway was good at depicting tough guys and death.
With the passage of time, writers in Asia, Africa and Latin America also began to win Nobel Prizes, and European idealism began to evolve into "exotic style".
Today, the Nobel Prize's apparent tendency to focus on the fate of individuals in power has led some critics to believe that the Nobel Prize has a "politically correct" color, so much so that literary researcher Shinan once said: "For a hundred years, the Nobel Prize has been sometimes satisfactory and sometimes disappointing, but it has never become the embodiment of ideals." ”
Gürner's book is on display in London, the capital of the United Kingdom
However, compared with other literary prizes, the Nobel Prize in Literature still maintains a focus on the human condition. In 1980, for example, laureate Cheslav Miloš (Poland) worriedly said at the award ceremony that our era is characterized by a "rejection of memory.". This remark sparked a discussion about "entertaining to death" since then.
From this point of view, the Nobel Prize in Literature is not so much concerned with the human condition as with the suffering experienced by human beings, whether it is body or mind.
Not a lone runner
From this point of view, it is not surprising that the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who has been optimistic for many years, has once again lost the Nobel Prize in Literature. Although Haruki Murakami's work is seen as a box office guarantee and has a large readership worldwide, it is still considered by critics that his work still has a Foothold in the bourgeois (petty-bourgeois) "misery".
The Nobel Prize in Literature is selected by 18 academicians of the Swedish Academy, 5 of whom serve as the primary, and their main job is to read the books of more than 200 nominated writers from all over the world from February to May every year, and select several writers from different countries and continents as the final nominated writers.
In June, 18 academicians began to read the works of the selected writers, and until September, all academicians voted for the final winner.
From this process, the possibility of the writer who is nominated by the primary academician or the academician's translation preference will be greatly increased, but if the academician does not agree with the work, then no matter how many nominations the author receives, he will not be awarded.
Some literary critics believe that compared with the works of the Japanese writers Kensaburo Oe and Yasunari Kawabata, who are also Japanese writers, Haruki Murakami's works are relatively popular and are very likely not to have an appetite for the Nobel Prize judges. Or maybe the Nobel prize judges believe that best-selling authors don't need the Nobel Prize.
Compared with the Nobel Prize, Haruki Murakami is more popular with the Organizing Committee of the New York Film Festival
In any case, in the history of the Nobel Prize's escort run, Haruki Murakami has never been alone.
Murakami's Japanese compatriot Yukio Mishima was nominated from his 30s until the leadership mutiny failed, and his life ended with a severed belly, and he did not receive the Nobel Prize, and died with only four nominations.
In 1965, another Japanese writer, Junichiro Tanizaki, died, and the year before, he had just entered the shortlist of the last six candidates for the Nobel Prize. In consideration of age, in 1968, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the prize to Yasunari Kawabata.
The Argentine poet Borges has also been nominated several times, and the Nobel Prize Committee even planned to award the literary prize to both Borges and another Guatemalan writer, Asturias, in 1967, but ultimately decided to return it to Borges in a few years. Unfortunately, Borges died before he could receive the award.
The same is true of the Italian writer Calvino and the Chinese writer Shen Congwen, who is said to have been ready to give out the prize, but the author has died. There is also the Czech writer Milan Kundera, who is well known to Chinese readers, who is also not awarded. In this year's forecast, Milan Kundera's odds are fifth-to-last on the charts, even lower than Elena Ferrante (author of the Napoli Quadrilogy) and J. Bergeron. K. Rowling (Harry Potter series).
This may be because Kundera is always writing about the world in which kitsch permeates every corner and claims to be away from the crowds. This contradicts the main theme of the Nobel Prize advocating resistance and change.
This was also captured in the chat between Smith and Gurna, the official Nobel interviewer, who, in response to his question of the cultural differences between Europe and Africa, believes that for many people and countries in Europe, compromise with refugees is a form of "handout" for them.
"These refugees come here out of first need because they have something to give and they don't come empty-handed. Many of them are talented, energetic people who have something to give. This could be another way of thinking. You shouldn't just think of these people as people who have nothing, but you should think of yourself helping those who need help, and you're also helping those who can contribute. Gurna said.
Therefore, how to understand the Nobel Prize has become a new way of changing how to look at the world. Perhaps the title of Hemingway's masterpiece The Flowing Feast aptly sums up this.
In addition, for Chinese readers, although two of Gurna's novels were selected for the 2013 edition of The African Short Stories anthology by Yilin Publishing House, unfortunately, there are no other Chinese translations of Gulner's works.
For Chinese publishers, new challenges have also emerged.