语言与文风2022granta.com编辑精选
如何书写非洲
How to Write about Africa (2019)
导读
这篇是 Granta 上的讽刺名作，用一套夸张的“写作指南”把西方媒体书写非洲时的陈词滥调集中展示出来：饥饿、野生动物、部落冲突、腐败强人。评论从各自的经历出发，讨论这种套话如何制造出“精心包装的错误信息”，以及写作者该如何避免把一整个大陆写成一个布景板。值得写作者读，因为它示范了“用模仿来拆解套路”这种写法，也提醒我们警惕自己笔下的默认模板。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
用“非洲”指代五十多个国家，就和用“美国”概括布鲁克林披萨店主和路易斯安那捕虾人一样荒谬，写到具体地方就写具体国家和区域。
- 02
把流行印象列成清单再加以反讽，是拆解套话的高效写法：让读者自己意识到“原来我脑子里装的是这些”。
- 03
检查自己是否把某个问题写成“只有那里才会发生”，很多所谓的地域特征其实是普遍问题的地方版本。
- 04
如果讽刺没有配套的非讽刺版本（认真、基于事实的同一主题书写），读者只会觉得好笑，却不会改变认知。
HN 评论精选
作者本人来自非洲，他指出非洲内部差异巨大，很多被当作“非洲特色”的问题其实是普遍问题，写作时不能把整块大陆当成一个整体。
我在那里出生，人生前十一年都在那里度过。我是白人，十二岁左右就听腻了“你不像非洲来的”这类玩笑。我没去过南非，听说很美。我认识的人都很好，但非洲许多不同族群都背负着严重的文化创伤——一部分由殖民主义造成或加剧，一部分比“白人猎手”的时代还要古老。必须指出，非洲各国、各部族之间的文化与社会差异极其巨大。换个角度说，美国人也是如此：把布鲁克林的披萨店老板和路易斯安那的捕虾人放在一起，你能说他们是一回事吗？非洲自然资源丰富，但资源的所有权恰恰是殖民主义搞坏的事情之一。政府不稳定是长期问题（见“殖民主义”）。贫困确实存在，但未必比世界其他地方更糟（当然，按美国的标准看是糟透了）。贫困容易滋生出噩梦般的独裁者。很多人们以为“只发生在非洲”的事，也发生在世界其他地方——巴尔干发生的事，和我们在非洲看到的某些残酷族群冲突一样糟糕。
ChrisMarshallNY查看英文原文
I was born there. I spent the first eleven years of my life there. I'm white, and got sick of all the "You don't look like you came from Africa!" jokes, at about age twelve. And no, I've never been in South Africa. I hear that it's beautiful. The people I knew were awesome, but there's a lot of serious cultural trauma, in many of the varied peoples of Africa. Some of it was caused/exacerbated by colonialism, and some of it is far older than The Great White Hunter. It's important to note that there are vast cultural and societal differences between various African nations and tribes. Come to think of it...the same can be said about Americans. Put a New York pizza joint owner from Brooklyn, next to a Louisiana shrimper, and tell me they're the same. Africa has enormous natural resources. Unfortunately, access to these resources has been one of the things that colonialism messed up. They can't own the stuff that comes up out of the ground. Unstable governments have been an endemic problem (See "colonialism," above). Poverty is an issue, but it isn't necessarily worse than in many other places on earth (but it is pretty damn bad, if you are used to the US version of "poverty"). Poverty does tend to breed the kinds of people that turn into nightmare dictators, though. A lot of the issues that people think "only happen in Africa" also happen in other parts of the world. What happened in the Balkans was every bit as bad as some of the awful tribal conflicts that we've seen from Africa. I desperately want Africa to come into its own. That will take a heck of a lot of things that I'm not qualified to prescribe. [EDIT]: I removed one line that probably set some teeth on edge. Upon reflection, it's not necessary to the narrative.
讽刺只能拆解套路，还需要一个同等用力的正面版本，告诉人们该怎么写。
这篇文章是一份编写精巧的陈词滥调大全。如果投入同样的功力，写一篇不带反讽的版本，会是什么样？我很想读那样的东西。
wombatmobile查看英文原文
TFA is a comprehensive compendium of cliche tropes, skilfully crafted. What could a similarly resourced effort produce written without tongue in cheek? I’d like to read that.
具体到国家和区域，而不说“非洲”，是可操作的写作准则。
我高中时读过这篇，它其实写于2005年。后来有位记者建议在报道中暂停使用“非洲”这个词，改为写具体国家以及该国的具体地区。遗憾的是，这两篇文章都没被认真对待。
bsanr2查看英文原文
I remember reading this in high school. It's actually from 2005. More recently, a journalist suggested a moratorium on the use of the word "Africa" in reporting; the country, and region of the country, should be used instead. It's disappointing that neither piece has been taken seriously.
陈词滥调的危险在于它让人误以为自己“了解”，实际得到的却是被包装过的错误信息。
我原以为自己对非洲几乎一无所知，读完这篇讽刺文才发现，我其实掌握了不少被精心包装过的、离奇怪诞的错误信息。你当然没法用一本书或一个地方概括一个有十亿人的大陆，但作者非常成功地收集了大量流行套话。真正的非洲人看到文中引用的那些文章和书，大概只会满脸尴尬。
wand3r查看英文原文
I thought I knew virtually nothing about Africa. After reading this funny take I realized I actually know quite a bit of weirdly crafted bizarre misinformation about Africa. Not that you could sum up a continent of a billion people in a book/one place, but he did a great job of collecting a lot of popularized tropes. “Real Africans” probably cringe when they see the referenced articles & books this author references.
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