'The life history of me, Segilola': early print culture in Lagos and the first Yoruba novel

我的一生，塞吉罗拉，拥有迷人的眼睛，千名男子的情人1929年至1930年，塞吉罗拉的故事在拉各斯引起了轰动。它的形式是给周报《明报》（Akede Eko）的编辑写了一系列信，信的作者是一位垂暮之年的妓女。在通俗的约鲁巴语中，塞吉罗拉讲述了她年轻时如何从调情逐渐滑向拜金，最后滑向彻头彻尾的娼妓。她把忏悔和道德警告与对自己无法抗拒的性欲的愉快回忆混合在一起。这篇文章由《Akede Eko》的编辑兼经营者托马斯（i.b.t thomas）撰写。但他煞费苦心地让很多读者相信了这一点——一位读者被塞吉罗拉的遭遇所打动，甚至寄了10先令来救济他们。其他人则恳求托马斯揭露女主角的真实身份。该报的定期撰稿人撰写专栏，从她的故事中汲取道德教训；拉各斯的生活越来越宽松，该市女性的轻浮和贪婪应受到谴责，对此有大量评论。这本连载小说非常受欢迎，在1930年3月完结后，托马斯立即将其再版成书。第二年，他连载了一个略为删节的英文译本，以方便那些渴望阅读这个故事但不会读约鲁巴语的公民。这篇文章有几点值得我们注意。它通常被认为是“第一部约鲁巴小说”，因此是约鲁巴创造性写作传统的先驱，后来成为非洲最大，最丰富和最多样化的写作之一，拥有数百种标题和不断创新。塞吉罗拉肮脏的现实主义和丰富的道德说教都在约鲁巴小说的连续浪潮中得到呼应。任何省略了这种叙述的文学史都是不完整的。然而，这本书已经绝版多年，没有人对它进行详细的研究。(2)这本书在现实主义方面投入了大量精力，提供了19世纪末和20世纪初拉各斯流行生活和文化的细节，这些细节在其他方面没有得到很好的记录：流行歌曲、流行舞蹈、轶事、俚语和流行谚语。它描绘了一幅世界性的流行文化的画面，它沿着海岸走向塞拉利昂和黄金海岸，而不是向内进入尼日利亚的腹地。(3)英语和约鲁巴语之间的语言界面是约鲁巴兰20世纪文化的一个重要特征。英语是西化的精英说的。但是，当选举民主的第一次试试性实验开始时，他们越来越多地使用约鲁巴语与受过小学教育、能读约鲁巴语的不那么精英的人群结成联盟，这些人可能会在当时的政治竞争中被动员起来。英语版Segilola的迅速诞生，以及它与约鲁巴语版本的显著不同，为探索这种语言界面的社会和政治含义提供了丰富的案例研究。(4)这个故事中对事实与虚构、揭露与隐瞒的精彩运用，使我们得以探索早期印刷文化如何吸引和吸引新公众的问题。语篇的寻址策略是复杂多变的。叙事是忏悔的，但没有揭示内心的生活。作者的笔名被贴在社会精英中非常显眼的成员的身份上，他们的活动被同时代的人仔细审查。通过印刷品聚集起来的这个假定的社区时时刻刻都在扩张和收缩。连体书信体的形式使我们能够观察到一种几乎就在我们眼前出现的新体裁。每周，读者的反馈帮助塑造了故事。叙事和诠释一起成长。这使我们能够近距离地研究社会和文本环境如何激发和维持一种新的体裁。

The Life History of Me, Segilola, Endowed with fascinating eyes, the lover of a thousand men'In 1929-30 the story of Segilola created a sensation in Lagos. It took the form of a series of letters to the editor of the weekly newspaper Akede Eko, from an aging prostitute now on her deathbed. In demotic Yoruba, Segilola tells of how in her youth she gradually slid from flirtation to gold-digging and finally to full blown harlotry. She mixes repentance and moral warnings with gleeful memories of her irrestistible sexuality. The story was written by Akede Eko's editor-proprietor, I.B.Thomas. But he took such pains to make it appear true that many readers, apparently, were taken in - one, moved to pity by Segilola's sufferings, even sent in 10 shillings towards their relief. Others pleaded with Thomas to reveal the heroine's true identity. Regular contributors to the paper wrote columns drawing out the moral lessons of her tale; there was a spate of commentary on the increasing laxity of Lagos life and the culpable frivolity and greed of the city's women. So popular was this serial that, after its conclusion in March 1930, I.B. Thomas immediately republished it as a book. The following year he serialised a somewhat abridged English translation for the benefit of those citizens who were avid to read the story but unable to read Yoruba.The text has several claims to our attention. (1) It is generally credited with being the 'first Yoruba novel', and thus with standing at the head of a tradition of creative writing in Yoruba which later became one of the largest, richest and most diverse in Africa, boasting hundreds of titles and constant innovation. Both the seamy realism and the profuse moralising of Segilola were echoed in successive waves of Yoruba fiction. Any literary history that omits this narrative is incomplete. Yet it has been out of print for many years and there has been no detailed study of it.(2) The narrative, with its intense investment in realism, furnishes details of popular life and culture in late 19th and early 20th century Lagos which are not otherwise well documented: popular songs, fashionable dances, anecdotes, slang and popular sayings. It paints a picture of a cosmopolitan popular culture oriented along the coast to Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast rather than inwards to the Nigerian hinterland. (3) The linguistic interface between English and Yoruba is an important feature of 20th century culture in Yorubaland. English was spoken by the westernised elite. But as the first tentative experiments in electoral democracy were inaugurated, they increasingly used Yoruba to forge alliances with a less-elite primary-school educated population who could read Yoruba and could potentially be mobilised in the political contests of the day. The speedy creation of the English version of Segilola - and the significant ways in which it differs from the Yoruba version - provide a rich case study through which to explore the social and political implications of this linguistic interface.(4) The fascinating play with fact and fiction, revelation and concealment in this story allow us explore the question of the ways in which early print culture addressed and convened new publics. The text's strategies of addressivity are complex and shifting. The narrative is a confessional but reveals no inner life. The authorial pseudonyms are pasted over the identities of the highly visible members of a sociable elite whose activities were scrutinised minutely by their contemporaries. The putative community that is being convened through print expands and contracts from moment to moment.(5) The serial, epistolary form allows us to observe a new genre emerging almost under our very eyes. The readers' responses helped shape the narrative from week to week. Narration and interpretation grew up together. This enables us to investigate, close-up, how social and textual environment can inspire and sustain a new genre.