紀(jì)念拉爾夫·埃里森百年誕辰

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.

（Soundbite of archived broadcast.）

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.”

羅伯特·西格爾（主持人）：拉爾夫·埃里森于1952年發(fā)表的小說《看不見的人》是對種族和人性作出的震撼人心的探索。它曾贏得“國家圖書獎”，被《時代》雜志和現(xiàn)代文庫評為20世紀(jì)最好的100部小說之一。

（紐約市）哈萊姆區(qū)河濱快車道730號，曾是埃里森長期居住的地方，在這之外的一座紀(jì)念碑上刻著他的出生年份為1914年，如同眾多傳記資料上所記載的一樣。事實上他早一年出生。今年，埃里森百年誕辰紀(jì)念活動在他的出生地俄克拉荷馬市以及紐約市進行。湯姆·維達(dá)來接下來將評價埃里森的一生及其著作。

湯姆·維達(dá)來（記者）：（我現(xiàn)在在）哈萊姆區(qū)第135街馬爾科姆愛克斯大道。1938年，拉爾夫·埃里森走在這些大街上采訪人們，為的是完成聯(lián)邦作家計劃中關(guān)于非裔美國人歷史的部分。差不多半個世紀(jì)之后，埃里森告訴我，那一經(jīng)歷對他成為作家影響深遠(yuǎn)。

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拉爾夫·埃里森：在我成長中從長輩那里聽來的故事在其中一些采訪中得到印證。它們讓我對什么是文化有了更為豐富的認(rèn)知。我可以說，它就像是在上一堂歷史課。

維達(dá)來：20世紀(jì)前50年非裔美國人的歷史為他的小說《看不見的人》提供了背景。（小說中）沒有名字的敘述者在南部農(nóng)村長大，上了一所頗有聲望的黑人大學(xué)，之后一路向北來到哈萊姆區(qū)，一度被左派知識分子接納而后拒絕。小說一開篇就映射出貫穿故事始末的主題。

紀(jì)伯倫·穆罕默德：（朗讀）我是個你們看不見的人。不，我并非埃德加·艾倫·坡筆下神出鬼沒的幽靈，也不是好萊塢電影中虛無縹緲的幻影。……