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As long as he can remember, author Viet Thanh Nguyen has been interested in how stories about his home country of Vietnam are told in America.
自打记事起，作家阮清越(Viet Thanh Nguyen)就对美国如何讲述他的原籍国越南的故事很感兴趣。
In his own works, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Sympathizer," he centers on the voices of refugees like himself.
在他自己的作品中，包括获得普利策奖的小说《同情者》，他关注的是像他一样的难民的声音。
And, tonight, he offers his Brief But Spectacular take on writing and memory.
今晚，他将在《简短而精彩》的栏目中讲述写作和记忆。
It's part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.
这是我们正在进行的艺术和文化系列节目“画布”的一部分。
I think anybody who has been touched by a war never forgets it. And that's been true for me.
我认为任何经历过战争的人都不会忘记它。 对我来说就是这样。
I never learned anything about Vietnam, as far as I can remember, in school.
就我记忆所及，我在学校时对越南一无所知。
It just wasn't even a subject.
它甚至都不是一个话题。
I got most of my education through Hollywood and through the books that I was finding in the public library, because I was very curious about where we had come from and what that history was.
我大部分的教育都是通过好莱坞和我在公共图书馆找到的书籍获得的，因为我非常好奇我们来自哪里以及那里的历史是什么。
And, for the most part, that history was completely American-centered.
而且，在很大程度上，那段历史完全以美国为中心。
Sometimes, that was benevolent exclusion of the Vietnamese.
有时，这是对越南人的善意排斥。
But, oftentimes, it was also deeply racist and sexist when it came to the depiction of Vietnamese people.
但是，通常情况下，当涉及到对越南人的描述时，带有深深的种族主义和性别歧视。
And that was -- that was shocking for me.
这让我很震惊。
And it played a big role in shaping my psyche and my determination to be a writer and a scholar who could do something different about that history.
这在塑造我的心理方面发挥了很大的作用，在让我决心成为一名作家和学者，从而对那段历史做出一些不同的改变方面也发挥了很大的作用。
I was 4 years old when Saigon fell, or was liberated, depending on your point of view.
西贡沦陷的时候，或者说被解放的时候(这取决于你怎么看)，我才4岁。
So, of course, my memories of that time are really undependable.
当然，我对那段时间的记忆是不可靠的。
I vaguely remember soldiers riding on tanks.
我模糊地记得士兵们坐着坦克。
I sort of remember sailors on our boat shooting at another boat.
我记得我们船上的海员在向另一艘船射击。
We arrived in the United States in the summer of 1975.
1975年夏天，我们来到了美国。
And we were resettled in a refugee camp in Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania.
我们被安置在宾夕法尼亚州印地安顿堡的一个难民营。
That's where my memories really begin.
那是我记忆真正开始的地方。
And I remember those barracks and storing those feelings and those memories away to eventually write about them.
我还记得那些营房，我把那些感觉和记忆储存起来，最终写了下来。
And so the tension here, of course, is that everything eventually needs to be forgotten in some way for us to move on and survive.
所以这里的紧张形势，当然，是所有的事情最终都需要以某种方式被遗忘，以使我们继续前进、继续生存。
And with the war in Vietnam, we reached a point where those people, that generation is starting to fade away.
随着越南战争的爆发，我们到达了这样一个阶段，那一代人开始逐渐消失。
And that's obviously a great loss in one way, but it's also a great opportunity for other people to step in and to tell different stories, either stories about moving on or stories about that time that have the luxury of emotional distance.
在某种程度上，这显然是一个巨大的损失，但这也是一个很好的机会，让其他人介入，讲述不同的故事，要么是关于继续前进的故事，要么是关于那段拥有情感距离的奢侈时光的故事。
And I think that's where I'm at.
我想这就是我现在的处境。
I think that I have been lucky that "The Sympathizer" has been read by a number of people.
我觉得我很幸运，《同情者》能被很多人阅读。
It's inevitable that you're -- when you're talking about a war and the tragedy and trauma, if you have anything meaningful to say, it'll probably be controversial, because people are still divided about it.
不可避免的是，当你谈论战争、悲剧和创伤时，如果你有什么有意义的东西要说，那很可能会引起争议，因为人们对此仍有分歧。
I have always thought of myself as a writer who works in conjunction with movements.
我一直认为自己是一个与运动密切相关的作家。
When I take on that label of being an Asian American writer, what I'm saying is, I'm a writer in relationship to Asian American communities and Asian American political and social movements.
当我被贴上亚裔美国作家的标签时，我想说的是，我是一个与亚裔美国人社区、亚裔美国人政治和社会运动有关的作家。
It was through writing that I could fight for my place in American society, but also in the global imagination as well.
通过写作，我可以为自己在美国社会的地位而奋斗，也可以为自己在全球想象中的地位而奋斗。
I'm Viet Thanh Nguyen, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on writing and memory.
我是阮清越，这是我对写作和记忆的简短而精彩的介绍。
And you can watch more Brief But Spectacular videos at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.
你可以在PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief上观看更多简短而精彩的视频。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
