Guelner's Works (English) Abdul Razak Guelner Shanghai Translation Publishing House
Joseph Brodsky wrote a famous article called "The Country We Call Exile", or a floating acorn, which mentioned that displacement and dislocation are common phenomena in this century. Broschi described the situation of the exiled writer he represented: the country he arrived in provided him with personal safety, but it made him insignificant in society. The reality of exile includes an exiled writer's unremitting struggle and plan to restore his meaning, protagonist and authority.
On July 7th, 2002110, the Swedish Academy announced that Nobel Prize in Literature would be awarded to British Tanzanian writer Abdul Razak Guelner in recognition of his "uncompromising and compassionate insight into the influence of colonialism and the fate of refugees in the cracks between different cultures and continents". The choice of Abdul Razak Guelner reflects Nobel Prize in Literature's consistent concern and new expectation for the century phenomenon of "displacement and dislocation".
Compared with brodsky and other veteran immigrant writers, Naipaul, kazuo ishiguro and Guelner are in different situations. Zhang Feng, a critic, noticed this "unknown" writer before Guelner won the prize, and wrote a review article entitled "Wandering between the Center and the Edge: The Diaspora of Abdul Razak Guelner". This title points out the same characteristics of immigrant writers, that is, the sense of wandering and uneasiness in diaspora. "Exile" became "diaspora". The decline of the word "emotional dimension" may mean that the situation of these immigrant writers has improved, but they are still hovering between the center and the edge.
Open the box of memory
Guelner lives in England and writes in English. He is a professor at Kent University. His collection of works has recently been translated into Chinese and published. At present, it contains five volumes: Paradise, Seaside, Afterlife, Silent Praise and Last Gift. Without exception, these works show his imagination and attempt to wander between the center and the edge and find himself in the process of displacement and dislocation.
Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Abdul Razak Guelner 202 1
The seaside tells the story that Saleh Omar fled his hometown of Zanzibar (part of the United Republic of Tanzania) and came to Britain. With the encounter with the son of the former enemy, the dusty past gradually emerged. Paradise and the afterlife tell the fate of Africans in the colonial period a hundred years ago, and personal stories are implicated in the historical memory of returning home. Silent Praise and The Last Gift are companion pieces, which describe the protagonist who has lived in England for many years. In his twilight years, under the trouble of illness, he recalls the past and his experiences and thoughts after returning to China in person, mixed with many unspeakable embarrassments and contradictions among ethnic groups, generations and cultures.
Guelner has always adhered to a realistic style similar to traditional realism, with lyrical style and subtle but not negligible sense of history. There is no doubt that these works have autobiographical elements. Guelner knew that his theme was himself and his companions. Between the heterogeneous culture that did not belong to them originally and the culture that they grew up in originally, he carried out complex self-conception and self-creation through writing. Memory is Guelner's most commonly used narrative technique. In other words, almost all his novels are narrated in the form of the hero's memory. At least, memory constitutes a main clue of this novel.
"I am a refugee and have come to seek asylum." At the seaside, Saleh Omar introduced himself like this and opened his memory box. This novel has superb writing techniques, multi-angle prism refraction and story nesting. Omar's memory leads to other characters, and other characters lead to other characters. Everyone is recalling the past, and memories are intertwined. You have me and I have you, which are inseparable. Every "I" is voicing, and every "I" provides a reasonable explanation for past events from its own perspective, laying the foundation for the final reconciliation between "I" and "I". This novel reposes the author's expectation that more important conflicts and contradictions can be solved in a gentle way.
This expectation also contains a premise, that is, "I" jumped out of the original time and space and was not bound and restricted by the past, thus becoming the master of my own destiny and creating another life for myself. This is the possibility that Omar won victory only after he left Zanzibar Island, and it is also the reason why Guelner's generation of immigrant families left their homeland and moved away. In this way, my hometown has also become the "other". Although I am a diaspora and have no roots, I have also gained freedom and freedom to speak. Looking back at my hometown through the window of a foreign land, the distance broadens my horizons, and I can find things that are too close to me through appearances.
However, the new "I" cannot be created out of thin air, but keeps in touch with my hometown through the umbilical cord. Therefore, the landing of "I" in a new country is a slow process, and there are bound to be many incompatibilities.
Rough continent
Chinua achebe, an African writer, said in The Authenticity of Novels that the creative intention of novels is to solve specific problems encountered in life, and the fiction of novels begins with the exploration of self-discovery and ends with wisdom and humanistic conscience. Africa has been colonized for a long time and has been deeply mired in politics. African people yearn for freedom, democracy and prosperity, and the "authenticity" of African novels cannot be separated from the political factors that pervade this land. From the reasons why Nobel Prize in Literature awarded Guelner, we can feel the influence of political factors. Although Guelner's novels don't write politics directly, they are always in the political atmosphere.
Paradise and the afterlife are all short stories of little people, but their fate is at the mercy of the big times, whether it is the business of shops, the management of trade or the changes of personal marriage and family. Yusuf, a boy, must realize that Uncle Aziz is not his "uncle" but his "grandfather". He was mortgaged because of his father's debt, which reflects the class difference and power structure in Africa. Under the colonial situation of nearly a hundred years, this power structure has not been disintegrated, but has been further strengthened within the scope of globalization and turned into more levels of oppression, with lords above it. In the historical relationship between Africa and Europe, the relationship between master and slave is not metaphor, but real and meaningful. African stories are part of historical dramas, such as slavery, colonialism and racism.
In the postcolonial context of Silent Praise and The Last Gift, those ignorant subjects woke up, but what followed was a vague and ambiguous situation.
The last gift begins with the emergency in Abbas, like an open magic bottle. This British family composed of Africans and Indians was seriously eroded by the "virus" through Abbas's physical pain. Abbas recalled the past when she left Africa and abandoned her wife and children. Mariam recalled her life as an abandoned baby. The relationship between their two children, daughter Anna and boyfriend Nick, ended because of her racial identity and cultural differences. Jamal decided to choose the topic of his graduation thesis as the modern history of Zanzibar Island. Although the Abbas family is already a middle-class family in Britain, the collision of past forces and cultures still dominates their fate. Even if the next generation grows up in British education, their thinking concept and lifestyle are British, however, it is still impossible for them to wash away the old traces.
Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Abdul Razak Guelner 202 1
The praise of silence is more ironic and sad. There are too many false elements in the combination of "I" and Emma. In order to satisfy the female anthropologist's curiosity about Africa, "I" fabricated many stories about her life experience and African customs and culture. This novel, like a great metaphor, describes the image of Africa from the perspective of western culture. When "I" returned to my hometown, I found that I couldn't adapt to my hometown and felt that I was out of the indigenous gossip and the familiar world. This state is also a very real psychological feeling of immigrant groups.
Reading these novels side by side, we can see the ups and downs and progress of Africa in this century. African novels try to establish a proper relationship with politics, and this desire is manifested in all aspects by these novels. Especially the criticism of polygamy and the concern for African feminism. In Paradise, the boy Yusuf was teased and teased repeatedly because of his beauty, and he could not get the love and quiet life he wanted. The end of the novel hints at his desperate choice. In this novel, the characters fail to grasp themselves, both men and women can only rise and fall. But in The Afterlife, Afiya and hamzah became lovers because of their loyalty to each other and Khalifa's tolerance. In the more modern "Praise Silence" and "The Last Gift", they became well-educated modern women with independent thoughts and personalities. In the past, girls in novels had to be veiled and could not contact and talk with men. Marriage can only be resigned, because you will be beaten if you want to study. That fate has been greatly improved. All these show the concrete reality of women's life in African culture.
Between the center and the edge
We must admit the attraction of European culture to modern Africans. All aspects of African literature production and research have been firmly grasped by the West. Early missionary schools, western elite education and British universities established by colonial rulers had a great influence on the first batch of modern African writers such as Achebe, Soyinka and ngugi.
Guelner is also in this system. On the one hand, it benefits from it, and at the same time, it is also its reviewer and thinker. After independence, most African countries used the language of colonists as their national language, which made the European language unprecedentedly popular in Africa and promoted the great prosperity of English literature in the world. Guelner writes in English, but he keeps many Swahili and Arabic words in his works. Liu Guozhi, one of the translators, said, "We seem to see the author switching languages intentionally or unintentionally." The characters in the works are not only participants and witnesses of the "story", but also participants or witnesses of the "translation". In my opinion, this kind of "translation" can be understood in a broad sense, which embodies Guelner's consciousness of consciously blending different cultures.
Throughout the creation and research process of modern African literature, it can be said that the modernity of African literature contains profound colonial roots, and post-colonial literature has a distinctive European style. The influence of European education on African thoughts and aesthetic feelings is a particularly complicated issue, which can be felt by almost all modern African writers, including Achebe, Coetzee, gordimer and others. Moreover, this influence is not one-way, but has a certain degree of "reverse colonization". Taking Guelner's novels as an example, Emma regards her husband as an exotic value provider, and Anna's getting along with her British boyfriend's family clearly shows Europeans' rejection and acceptance, transformation and transformation of African culture.
Anders Olson, chairman of the 20021Nobel Prize Selection Committee, said: "In Guelner's literary world, everything is changing-memories, names and identities. This may be because his creation can't be completed in any sense, and in all his works, there is an endless exploration driven by the enthusiasm of the wise. " At a time when issues such as marginalization, national consciousness and identity are very sensitive, reading Guelner's works will help us to understand his understanding of "Africanism", the image of "The Other" of immigrant groups, and his concern about the construction of the identity of vulnerable ethnic groups. We also understand the fundamental reason why Guelner won the prize: he brought inspiration, confidence and hope to people who think about self-identity in a heterogeneous space in the post-colonial context. (Editor: Zhang Yuyao)