你为谁写作? ——奥尔罕·帕慕克在北大的演讲辞

Who do you write for? Over the last thirty-odd years—since I first became a writer—this has been the question I’ve heard most often from both readers and journalists. The motives depend on the time and the place, as does the extent of their curiosity, but they all ask in the same suspicious, supercilious tone of voice.

In the mid-seventies, when I first decided to become a novelist, the question reflected the widely held philistine view that art and literature were luxuries that a poor non-Western country struggling to join the modern age could ill afford. There was also the suggestion that someone “as educated and cultivated as yourself” might serve the nation more usefully as a doctor fighting epidemics or an engineer building bridges. (Jean-Paul Sartre gave credence to this view in the early 1970s when he said he would not be in the business of writing novels if he were a Biafran intellectual.)

In later years, those questioners were more interested in finding out which sector of society I hoped might read and admire my work. I knew this to be a trick question, for if I did not answer, “I write for the poorest and most downtrodden members of society!” I would be accused of protecting the interests of Turkey’s landowners and its bourgeoisie—even as I was reminded that any pure-minded, good-hearted writer who claimed to be writing for peasants, workers, and the indigent would be writing for people who were barely literate. In the 1970s, when my mother asked who I was writing for, her mournful and concerned tone told me she was really asking, How are you planning to support yourself? And when friends asked me who I wrote for. the tinge of mockery in their voices suggested that no one would ever want to read a book by someone like me.

Thirty years on, I hear this question more frequently than ever. This has more to do with the fact that my novels have been translated into forty languages. Especially during the past ten years, my ever more numerous interviewers seem worried that I might take their words the wrong way, so they are inclined to add, “You write in Turkish, so do you write just for Turks or do you now also have in mind the wider audience you reach through your translations?” Whether we are speaking inside Turkey or outside it, the question is always accompanied by that same suspicious, supercilious smile, leaving me to conclude that, if I wish my works to be accepted as true and authentic, I must answer, “I write only for Turks.”

Before we examine the question itself—for it is neither honest nor humane—we must remember that the rise of the novel coincided with the emergence of the nation-state. When the great novels of the nineteenth century were being written, the art of the novel was in every sense a national art. Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy wrote for an emerging middle class, who could in the books of its respective national author recognize every city, street, house, room, and chair it could indulge in the same pleasures as it did in the real world and discuss the same ideas. In the nineteenth century, novels by important authors appeared first in the art and culture supplements of national newspapers, for their authors were speaking to the nation. In their narrative voices we can sense the disquiet of the concerned patriot whose deepest wish is for his country to prosper. By the end of the nineteenth century, to read and write novels was to join a national discussion on matters of national importance.

But today the writing of novels carries an entirely different meaning as does the reading of literary novels. The first change came in the first half of the twentieth century, when the literary novel’s engagement with modernism won it the status of high art. Just as significant have been the changes in communication that we’ve seen over the past thirty years: In the age of global media, literary writers are no longer people who speak first and only to the middle classes of their own countries but are people who can speak, and speak immediately, to readers of “literary novels” all the world over. Today’s literary readers await a new book by Garcia Márquez, Coetzee, or Paul Auster the same way their predecessors awaited the new Dickens—as the latest news. The world audience for literary novelists of this cohort is far larger than the audience their books reach in their countries of origin.

Writers write for their ideal reader, for their loved ones for themselves. This is the truth, but not the whole truth. For today’s literary writers also write for those who read them. From this we might infer that today’s literary writers are gradually writing less for their own national majorities (who do not read them) than for the small minority of literary readers in the world who do. So there we have it: The needling questions, and the suspicions about these writers’ true intentions, reflect an uneasiness about this new cultural order that has come into being over the past thirty years.

The people who find it most disturbing are the opinion makers and cultural institutions of non-Western nations. Uncertain as they are about their standing in the world, unwilling as they are to discuss current national crises or the black marks in their history in international arenas, such constituencies are necessarily suspicious of novelists who view history and nationalism from a nonnationalist perspective. In their view, novelists who do not write for national audiences are exoticizing their country for “foreign consumption” and inventing problems that have no basis in reality. There is a parallel suspicion in the West, where many readers believe that local literatures should remain local, pure, and true to their national roots their secret fear is that becoming a “world” writer who draws from traditions outside his own culture will cause one to lose one’s authenticity. The one who most acutely feels this fear is a reader who longs to open a book and enter a foreign country that is cut off from the world, who longs to watch that country’s internal wrangling, much as one might witness a family argument next door. If a writer is addressing an audience that includes readers in other cultures speaking other languages, then this fantasy dies too.

It is because all writers have a deep desire to be authentic that—even after all these years—I still love to be asked for whom I write. But while a writer’s authenticity does depend on his ability to engage with the world in which he lives, it depends just as much on his ability to understand his own changing position in that world. There is no such thing as an ideal reader unencumbered by social prohibitions and national myths, just as there no such thing as an ideal novelist. But—be he national or international—it is the ideal reader for whom all novelists write, first by imagining him into being, and then by writing books with him in mind. 

[参考译文]

你为谁写作?

你为谁写作？这是我成为作家后的三十多年间最常听到读者和记者们问及的一个问题。他们的动机以及好奇程度因时间和地点不同而异，但是所有的人都在以同样怀疑、傲慢的口吻诘问。

在七十年代中期，当我最初决定成为一个小说家的时候，这个问题反映出一个普遍化的市侩观点，认为文学艺术是一个努力着要加入现代进程的、贫穷的、非西方国家所不能承担的奢侈品。也有人说，一个“像你一样受过教育、有教养”的人可以更有效地为国家服务，比如做一个医生，同传染病作战，或者做一个工程师，建造桥梁。（让-保尔·萨特在二十世纪七十年代早期曾说过，假如他是一个比拉夫[1]知识分子，他决不会从事写作这个行业。这表明他赞同这种观点。）

最近几年，那些提问者们对于我寄希望于社会上哪一群体来阅读和欣赏我的作品更感兴趣。我知道这是一个棘手的问题，因为假如我没有回答：“我为社会上那些最贫穷且饱受蹂躏的人们写作！”我会被指责维护土耳其的地主和资产阶级的利益——正如人们提示我的那样：任何一个声称为农民、工人和穷人写作的纯洁、善良的作家都不过是在为那些勉强能识字的人写作。在二十世纪七十年代，当我的母亲问我为谁写作时，她那悲伤关切的语气告诉我她其实是在问，你打算如何养活自己？当朋友们问我为谁写作时，他们讥讽的音调暗示道：没有人想读像我这样的人写的书。

三十年后，我比以往任何时候都要更经常地听到这个问题。这在很大程度上和我的书已经被翻译成四十种语言有关。尤其是在过去的十年间，那些为数众多的采访者们似乎担心我可能会误解他们的意思，因此他们往往喜欢加上一句：“你用土耳其语写作，那么你是仅为土耳其人写作还是如今也会考虑到经由你的译作而影响到的更广泛的读者群？”不管我们是在土耳其境内还是境外谈话，伴随这个问题的总是那种怀疑、傲慢的微笑。我因而得出一个结论，即如果我希望我的作品被看作是真实可信的，我必须回答：“我仅为土耳其人写作。”

在我们探究这个既不诚实又没有人情味的问题之前，我们必须牢记，小说是伴随着民族国家的崛起而兴起的。在十九世纪那些伟大的小说被创作的时期，小说艺术从各个方面来说都可称之为一种民族艺术。狄更斯、陀思妥耶夫斯基、托尔斯泰为正在崛起的中产阶级写作，他们可以在各自的民族作家的书中识别出每一座城市、每一条街道、每一座房舍、每一间房间和每一把椅子；他们可以沉浸在与现实世界一样的欢乐中，可以讨论同样的想法。在十九世纪，重要作家们的小说最初都发表在国家报纸的艺术文化副刊中，因为他们的作家是在对整个民族讲话。从他们讲述的声音中，我们可以感觉到那些深挚地希望他们的国家繁荣昌盛的、忧虑的爱国者们的不安。到十九世纪末为止，读小说和写小说意味着加入一场有关国家大事的民族讨论中。

然而今天，写小说和读小说承载的意义已经与过去全然不同。这种改变开始于二十世纪上半叶。那时，小说与现代主义的结合为它赢得了高级艺术的地位。正如我们在过去的三十年间所看到的那样，交流方式的变化也是非常显著的：在媒体全球化时代，作家们已经不再是那些首先且仅仅对着本国中产阶级讲话的人了，他们是能够讲话，而且能够直接对着全世界的小说读者讲话的人。今天的文学读者们期待着加西亚·马尔克斯、库切或者保罗·奥斯特的新书，正如他们的前人期待着狄更斯的新作在最新的报纸中出现那样。这类作家在世界范围内拥有的读者数量比他们的本国读者数量多。

作家为他们的理想读者写作，为所爱的人写作，为自己写作。这是事实，但却不是全部事实，因为今天的作家们也为那些读他们作品的人写作。由此可见，今天的作家们渐渐更多地为世界上那些读他们作品的少数读者写作，而不是为本国那些不读他们作品的多数民众写作。因此我们可以得出一种结论：那些尖锐的问题，以及对作家真正意图的怀疑，反映了一种对于在过去的三十年间出现的这种新的文化秩序的不安。

对此感到最为忧虑的人是那些非西方国家的舆论制造者和文化机构。这些人对于自己在世界上的身份不确定，不愿意在世界论坛上讨论当今的民族危机或历史上的污点。他们必须对那些从非民族主义的角度来看待历史和民族主义的作家持怀疑态度。在他们看来，那些不为自己国家的读者写作的作家们是在将自己的国家异化以供“外国消遣”，并且杜撰出一些毫无现实依据的问题。在西方也有类似的怀疑。很多读者都认为本土文学作品应当保持本土性和纯洁性，忠实于本民族的传统。他们隐在的恐惧是，当一个作家成为世界性的作家，从自身文化之外的传统中吸取养分时，他将会失去自身的真实性。对这种恐惧最敏感的是这样一种读者，他们渴望打开一本书，进入一个与世隔绝的异域国家，他们渴望观看这个国家内部的争斗，就像人们可以旁观一个邻居的家庭争吵。假如一个作家面向的读者群也包括处于其他文化中的、讲不同语言的读者，那么，这种幻想就会自灭。

正是由于所有的作家都深切地渴望真实，因此即使在这么多年后，我仍然喜欢被问及我为谁写作。但是，尽管一个作家的真实性确实取决于他融入自己所在世界的能力，但也同样取决于他对自己在这个世界上不断变化的身份的理解能力。不为社会禁律和民族神话所妨碍的理想读者是不存在的，正如理想的小说家是不存在的一样。但是，所有的小说家，不论他是本土的，还是国际的，都在为理想的读者写作，首先想像着他们是存在着的，然后心存着他们来写作。

[1] 比拉夫是尼日利亚东南面一个地方，从1967年到1970年，这里爆发了一场空前惨烈的战争——尼日利亚内战，造成了200万－300万人的死亡和空前的饥馑，而且留下了许多至今尚未消除的后遗症。—译者注。