Longreads Best of 2019: Essays

Jennifer Baker

詹妮弗·贝克

Publishing professional, contributing editor to Electric Literature, creator/host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, editor of Everyday People: The Color of Life—A Short Story Anthology.

出版专业人士、《电子文学》特约编辑、《出版业中的少数群体》播客的创作者/主持人、《平凡人：生命的色彩——短篇小说选集》的编辑。

## Lesson Plan: This Is Not a Drill (Jasminne Mendez, Queen Mob’s Tea House)

## 课程计划：这不是演习（Jasminne Mendez，黑帮女王茶馆）

On Facebook author Jasminne Mendez said “Lesson Plan” came out of “an attempt at capturing what I’ve felt and what I can only imagine feeling.” Art at its best, at its height, at its most vivid brings us into an experience so deeply one cannot help but feel the effects of the work in our marrow.

Facebook 的作者贾斯敏·门德斯 (Jasminne Mendez) 表示，“课程计划”的诞生是“试图捕捉我的感受以及我只能想象的感受”。最好、最高峰、最生动的艺术将我们带入一种如此深刻的体验，让人情不自禁地感受到作品对我们骨髓的影响。

“Lesson Plan” captures something unique and raw through structure, precision, poetics, and accuracy of what an initially conventional turned unconventional school day looks like when it comes to a new “normal”: active shooters/drills.

“课程计划”通过结构、精确性、诗意和准确性，捕捉到了一些独特而原始的东西，即当谈到新的“常态”时，最初传统的、非常规的学校日是什么样子：活跃的射手/训练。

How can we keep kids safe?

我们怎样才能保证孩子的安全？

Is that even possible anymore?

这还有可能吗？

What pressures are educators under?

教育工作者面临哪些压力？

What and who gets lost when these events occur?

当这些事件发生时，什么人和谁会迷失？

When will this kind of terror end?

这种恐怖什么时候才能结束？

The refrain of “this is not a drill” pulsates throughout.

“这不是演习”贯穿始终。

Remember…

记住……

remember…

记住……

remember.

记住。

The bare honesty of “Lesson Plan” exemplifies the kind of writing that inspires you to experiment with how to encapsulate and explore our reality, as distressing as it may be.

《课程计划》的赤裸裸的诚实体现了这种写作方式，它激励你尝试如何概括和探索我们的现实，尽管它可能令人痛苦。

Lilly Dancyger

莉莉·丹西格

A contributing editor at Catapult, founder and host of the Memoir Monday newsletter and reading series, and editor of Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger.

Catapult 的特约编辑、回忆录星期一时事通讯和阅读系列的创始人和主持人，以及《烧毁：女性写作愤怒》的编辑。

## The Greeter (T Kira Madden, The Sun)

## 迎宾员（T Kira Madden，《太阳报》）

Matthew SalessesAuthor of the novels The Hundred-Year Flood and the forthcoming Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear (Little A, August 2020).

马修·塞莱斯（Matthew Salesses）小说《百年洪水》和即将出版的《消失》《分身消失》的作者（小A，2020 年 8 月）。

## The Uncanny Child (Elisa Gabbert, The Paris Review)

## 不可思议的孩子（Elisa Gabbert，《巴黎评论》）

What should an essay do?

一篇论文应该做什么？

I am reading, right now, about mirror neurons and desire.

我现在正在阅读有关镜像神经元和欲望的书。

Mirror neurons are the neurons that fire both when we do something and when we watch someone else do that thing; they are said to be responsible for empathy, and learning.

镜像神经元是当我们做某事和当我们看到别人做那件事时都会放电的神经元。据说他们负责同理心和学习。

Empathy and learning are at the heart of what compels me to read an essay.

同理心和学习是促使我阅读论文的核心。

In the essays I like best, I rarely know at first why I am reading.

在我最喜欢的文章中，我一开始很少知道自己为什么要读。

Forgive me, but I never read an essay for a story.

请原谅我，但我从来没有读过一篇关于故事的文章。

In fiction, many different desires are in conflict, provoking the readerly desire to both get to the end of the story and never get to the end of the story.

在小说中，许多不同的欲望是相互冲突的，激发读者既想读完故事又想读完故事的欲望。

In an essay, the only desire to shape the audience’s desire is the essayist’s.

在一篇文章中，塑造观众欲望的唯一愿望是散文家的。

In other words, fairly or not, I want a novel to know what I want; I want an essay to show me what I want.

换句话说，无论公平与否，我想要一本知道我想要什么的小说；我想要一篇文章来告诉我我想要什么。

Desire is mimetic — how and what we desire is learned from the desires of others — so a good essay must take responsibility for the desires of its readers.

欲望是模仿的——我们的欲望是如何从他人的欲望中学到的——所以一篇好的文章必须对其读者的欲望负责。

An essay should show us how to want better, by showing us the essayist thinking through her own wants.

一篇文章应该向我们展示散文家如何思考自己的需求，从而向我们展示如何想要更好。

The essayist who does this most reliably for me is Elisa Gabbert.

对我来说最可靠地做到这一点的散文家是埃莉莎·加伯特（Elisa Gabbert）。

Instead of offering one essay to read from 2019, I would like to offer a step in one author’s direction.

我不想提供一篇 2019 年开始阅读的文章，而是向一位作者的方向迈出一步。

Vanessa Mártir

凡妮莎·马蒂尔

Writer, educator, and the founder of the Writing Our Lives Workshop.

作家、教育家和“书写我们的生活”工作室的创始人。

## ‘Queen & Slim’ Could Be One of the Great Love Stories of All Time — if You Let It (Carvell Wallace, The New York Times Magazine)

## 如果你愿意的话，《Queen & Slim》可能会成为有史以来最伟大的爱情故事之一（卡维尔·华莱士，《纽约时报》杂志）

Choosing a best of 2019 essay was nearly impossible because so many gorgeous essays were published this year, but this feature by Carvell Wallace is one is that will stay with me for a long time.

选择一篇 2019 年最佳论文几乎是不可能的，因为今年发表了很多精彩的论文，但卡维尔·华莱士的这篇文章将让我长久铭记。

I know an essay is that good when I want to share it with my 15-year-old daughter.

当我想与我 15 岁的女儿分享一篇文章时，我就知道它有多好。

I love essays that take me on a journey.

我喜欢带我踏上旅程的文章。

I love to see inside people’s lives, into their humanity, their hearts, their emotions, what moves them and shatters them, what gives them hope, what they survive.

我喜欢深入人们的生活，了解他们的人性、他们的内心、他们的情感，是什么让他们感动，什么让他们破碎，什么给他们希望，什么让他们生存。

I rarely expect that from a movie review.

我很少期望从电影评论中看到这一点。

Carvell Wallace’s language is beautiful and wrenching but what got me was his ability to put into words what I have struggled to write: “Every experience is either life-affirming or life-denying.

卡维尔·华莱士的语言优美而痛苦，但让我感动的是他能够用语言表达我一直在努力写下的东西：“每一次经历要么是肯定生命，要么是否定生命。

There is just one trick.

只有一招。

It sometimes happens that to move toward love — true, active, life-affirming love — means to move toward death.”

有时，走向爱——真正的、积极的、肯定生命的爱——就意味着走向死亡。”

This essay brought me closer to life, which is what I seek in an essay.

这篇文章让我更贴近生活，这就是我在文章中所追求的。

The pain and joy of the testimony.

见证的痛苦和喜乐。

Wallace writes unflinchingly about how loss and our proximity to death can shape us and open us up if we allow it.

华莱士毫不畏惧地写道，如果我们允许的话，失去和我们与死亡的接近会如何塑造我们并让我们敞开心扉。

He doesn’t negate or make light of what it’s like to live as a person of color in this country, the dangers we face constantly, as we go about our lives.

他没有否认或轻视作为一个有色人种在这个国家生活的感受，以及我们在生活中不断面临的危险。

He affirmed what experiencing loss and injustice has taught me: that fear cannot stop us from experiencing joy, from loving and letting ourselves be seen….

他肯定了经历损失和不公正教会我的东西：恐惧不能阻止我们体验快乐、爱和让自己被看到……。

Carvell Wallace reminded me in this essay of what art and writing can do, and ultimately that’s why I chose it as the best essay of 2019.

卡维尔·华莱士（Carvell Wallace）在这篇文章中提醒我艺术和写作可以做什么，最终这就是我选择它作为 2019 年最佳文章的原因。

Rani Neutill

拉尼·诺伊尔

A writer and professor of writing and literature at work on “do you love me?,” a memoir about fractured identity and her relationship with her mentally ill Bengali immigrant mother.

一位作家兼写作和文学教授，正在创作《你爱我吗？》，这是一本关于破碎的身份以及她与患有精神疾病的孟加拉移民母亲的关系的回忆录。

## Breaking My Own Silence (Min Jin Lee, The New York Times)

## 打破我自己的沉默（李敏珍，《纽约时报》）

Every year, a slew of fantastic essays are published.

每年都会发表大量精彩的论文。

2019 felt even more exceptional in this regard.

2019 年在这方面感觉更加特殊。

One particular essay resonated with me, both as a child of an immigrant mother who struggled with language, accent, and assimilation into American society, and as a scholar of Asian American literature.

一篇特别的文章引起了我的共鸣，无论是作为一个在语言、口音和融入美国社会方面挣扎的移民母亲的孩子，还是作为一名亚裔美国文学学者。

Novelist, Min Jin Lee’s, “Breaking My Own Silence,” beautifully chronicles her journey through life and education and the difficulty of speaking and speaking up.

小说家李敏珍的《打破我自己的沉默》精美地记录了她的生活和教育历程，以及说话和发声的困难。

She moved from Seoul to Queens, NY when she was 7 years old and narrates her experience as a Korean immigrant to recount how the English language is one of the determining, often insidious, forces of assimilation.

她 7 岁时从首尔搬到纽约皇后区，讲述了自己作为韩国移民的经历，讲述了英语如何成为决定性的、往往是阴险的同化力量之一。

She also describes how she encountered notions of Asian women as silent, weak and submissive — the lotus blossom stereotype.

她还描述了她如何遭遇亚洲女性沉默、软弱和顺从的观念——莲花的刻板印象。

Lee astutely and emotionally notes the differences between talking and writing.

李敏锐而富有感情地注意到说话和写作之间的区别。

The links between the two and the power of both.

两者之间的联系以及两者的力量。

The painful nature of each expressive gesture.

每个表达动作的痛苦本质。

Her experiences as a Korean immigrant, now having lived in the West for more than four decades, build to make sense of herself as a writer.

她作为一名韩国移民的经历，现在已经在西方生活了四十多年，这些经历让她认识到自己作为一名作家的意义。

So many scenes moved me.

很多场景都让我感动。

I recalled moments in my own childhood where my mother’s practices as a Bengali immigrant separated me from my classmates — how people made fun of my name and the way my mother made up my hair.

我回忆起我童年时的一些时刻，母亲作为孟加拉移民的做法将我与同学分开——人们如何取笑我的名字以及我母亲给我做头发的方式。

She always braided it, wove ribbons into each plait, and wrapped them up into two ovals that bounced around my head.

她总是把它编成辫子，把丝带编进每个辫子里，然后把它们包成两个椭圆形，在我的头上弹来弹去。

This is something mothers did to their daughters in Kolkata as they sent them off to school.

这是加尔各答的母亲们在送女儿上学时对她们所做的事情。

It was one of the ways in which my mother attempted to hold onto her identity as a Bengali woman.

这是我母亲试图保持孟加拉女性身份的方式之一。

I often felt the shame of not being able to be what was considered beautiful and “American,” because of this.

因此，我经常为自己无法成为被认为美丽和“美国人”的人而感到羞耻。

Lee’s essay helped me make sense of my own experiences and the ways in which I learned to become a writer and someone who struggles.

李的文章帮助我理解了自己的经历以及我学会成为一名作家和奋斗者的方式。

Morgan Jerkins

摩根杰金斯

Author of the New York Times bestseller, This Will Be My Undoing, and the Senior Editor at ZORA.

《纽约时报》畅销书《This Will Be My Undoing》的作者，ZORA 的高级编辑。

## The Crane Wife (C.J.

## 鹤妻 (C.J.

Hauser, The Paris Review)

豪瑟，《巴黎评论》）

I don’t know even know where to begin with this essay.

我什至不知道从哪里开始这篇文章。

It was only published five months ago and I bring it up every chance I get when talking about how to craft a personal narrative in a structurally unique way.

它仅在五个月前出版，当我谈论如何以结构独特的方式制作个人叙述时，我一有机会就会提到它。

Who would’ve thought that the end of an engagement combined with the discovery of cranes and their behavior would have that much in common?

谁会想到交战的结束与起重机及其行为的发现会有这么多共同点？

Hauser beautifully blends this moment of coming into her own as a newly single woman who’s studying cranes as she reflects on all the times in her previous relationship where she had red flags to leave.

豪瑟完美地融合了这个作为一个正在研究鹤的新单身女性的时刻，她反思了她之前的关系中所有需要离开的危险信号。

Emotionally resonant, vulnerable, and smart, I hope Hauser continues to publish as much as she wants.

豪瑟情感共鸣、脆弱且聪明，我希望豪瑟能够继续发表她想要的作品。

Ayşegül Savaş

艾谢古尔·萨瓦什

The author of Walking on the Ceiling.

《在天花板上行走》一书的作者。

## Manual for Mourning a Great Poet (Caroline Stockford, Yrakha)

## 哀悼一位伟大诗人的手册（Caroline Stockford，Yrha）

Many of the essays I read this year were written with outrage, a sentiment particularly well-suited to social media and the types of essays that get circulated within it.

我今年读到的许多文章都是带着愤怒写成的，这种情绪特别适合社交媒体和其中传播的文章类型。

Outrage is easily spread; its sting is unambiguous and quickly felt.

愤怒很容易蔓延；它的刺痛是明确的并且很快就能感觉到。

It has come to represent how much we care; it may seem the only way to write about the things that matter to us.

它已经代表了我们的关心程度；这似乎是写对我们重要的事情的唯一方法。

In the language of outrage, the unremarkable aches of our lives can be cast aside, the small cares washed away.

在愤怒的语言中，我们生活中那些不起眼的痛苦可以被抛在一边，小小的忧虑可以被冲走。

Caroline Stockford’s essay “Manual for Mourning a Great Poet” is an ode to old-world passions — to beers and cigarettes in backstreets, posters of rock stars, poems recited by heart.

卡罗琳·斯托克福德的文章《哀悼伟大诗人手册》是对旧世界激情的颂歌——后街的啤酒和香烟、摇滚明星的海报、背诵的诗歌。

It is about the betrayal, friendship, and abuse of a great poet’s life.

这是关于一位伟大诗人一生的背叛、友谊和虐待的故事。

The poet in the essay, Küçük İskender, will be unknown to non-Turkish readers, though he was a cult figure in Turkish poetry.

这篇文章中的诗人库楚克·伊斯肯德 (Küçük Iskender) 对于非土耳其读者来说并不陌生，尽管他是土耳其诗歌中的一个崇拜人物。

That is part of the essay’s heartbreak.

这是这篇文章令人心碎的一部分。

Not because Küçük İskender didn’t achieve international fame, but because he lived fiercely and passionately within literature.

并不是因为库楚克·伊斯肯德没有获得国际声誉，而是因为他对文学充满热情。

The essay reminded me of the force of true poetry; that outrageously frail manual for living a life.

这篇文章让我想起了真正诗歌的力量；那本极其脆弱的生活手册

Sari BottonEssays editor, Longreads

Sari Botton 长篇读物散文编辑

## The Optics of Opportunity (Hafizah Geter, Gay Magazine)

## 机遇之光（Hafizah Geter，同性恋杂志）

I will confess that when Hafizah Geter tweeted about her experience with Barnes & Nobel’s failed, deeply problematic Springing Center Fellowship for emerging writers, I reached out to invite her to write an essay about it for Longreads.

我承认，当 Hafizah Geter 在推特上讲述了她在巴诺书店为新兴作家设立的斯普林中心奖学金失败的、问题严重的经历时，我邀请她为 Longreads 写一篇有关该奖学金的文章。

I knew I wouldn’t be the only editor pursuing this important piece, and I was happy to see it land at Gay Magazine.

我知道我不会是唯一一个追求这篇重要文章的编辑，我很高兴看到它登陆《同性恋杂志》。

In the essay, Geter sets the record straight on outrageous displays of racism, white privilege, and gaslighting on the part of white instructor, Jackson Taylor, after her classmate wrote about it less critically in The New Yorker, framing the story as just “a quirky tale of wealth and nepotism.”

在这篇文章中，盖特对白人教练杰克逊·泰勒的种族主义、白人特权和煤气灯的令人发指的表现进行了澄清，此前她的同学在《纽约客》上发表了不那么批判性的文章，将这个故事描述为“一个关于财富和裙带关系的离奇故事”。

She also brings to light the morally bankrupt opportunism of Barnes & Noble founder Steve Riggio and his daughter, Stephanie (an incognito fellow in the program herself), who seemed to have created the fellowship — for which they “had invited a group of emerging writers to use our work to engage and interrogate structures of power” but were averse to questioning white power — to project a false air of wokeness.

她还揭露了巴诺书店创始人史蒂夫·里吉奥（Steve Riggio）和他的女儿斯蒂芬妮（Stephanie）（该项目中隐姓埋名的研究员）道德败坏的机会主义，他们似乎创建了这个奖学金——为此他们“邀请了一群新兴作家利用我们的作品来参与和质疑权力结构”，但不愿质疑白人权力——以投射出一种虚假的觉醒气氛。

It was an unfair bargain the participants didn’t know they were making, and Geter gets at this urgently and compellingly.

这是一场不公平的交易，参与者并不知道自己在做这件事，盖特对此做出了紧急而令人信服的处理。

She writes: “…as a black, queer woman I am aware of how much harder people of color have to labor in order to be allowed to reap our fruits.

她写道：“……作为一名黑人酷儿女性，我知道有色人种必须付出多少努力才能收获我们的果实。

I am no stranger to how often opportunity has a racial cost.

我对机遇往往会付出种族代价这一点并不陌生。

And wasn’t this an opportunity?

这难道不是一个机会吗？

— every writer in the room was thinking — though for the writers of color, like it too often is, it was opportunity at a cost…The exchange the people of color at the Springing Center made for the ‘opportunity’ was in granting favorable optics — after all, among the people of color, we carried most of the notable bylines that gave the room prestige — The New Yorker, Tin House, books forthcoming from Knopf and Graywolf.

——房间里的每个作家都在想——尽管对于有色人种作家来说，就像经常发生的那样，这是一个有代价的机会……斯普林中心的有色人种为“机会”所做的交换是给予有利的视觉效果——毕竟，在有色人种中，我们拥有大多数赋予房间声望的著名署名——《纽约客》、《锡屋》、克诺夫和格雷沃尔夫即将出版的书籍。

But our admission into white spaces is never free, even when we are the ones carrying the room.”

但我们进入白色空间从来都不是免费的，即使我们是房间的主人。”

## Hideous Men (E.

## 丑陋的男人（E.

Jean Carroll, The Cut)

吉恩·卡罗尔，《剪辑》

In this stunning excerpt from her memoir, What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal, E.

在她的回忆录《我们需要男人做什么？：一个温和的建议》中，E.

Jean Carroll recalls being sexually assaulted by numerous men throughout her life, and outright raped in the mid-’90s in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room by none other than Donald Trump.

让·卡罗尔 (Jean Carroll) 回忆起她一生中遭受过无数男性性侵犯的经历，并于 90 年代中期在波道夫·古德曼 (Bergdorf Goodman) 的更衣室里被唐纳德·特朗普 (Donald Trump) 彻底强奸。

Carroll manages to control the narrative in a piece in which she is abused, again and again, even deploying humor in places as she points to various absurdities of coming up as a woman in media in the ’60s.

卡罗尔成功地控制了自己一次又一次受到虐待的作品的叙事，甚至在一些地方运用了幽默，指出了 60 年代媒体中作为女性出现的各种荒谬之处。

“I am a member of the Silent Generation,” she writes.

“我是沉默的一代的一员，”她写道。

“We do not flap our gums.

“我们不会拍打牙龈。

We laugh it off and get on with life.”

我们一笑置之，继续生活。”

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