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

《我的生活史，塞吉罗拉》，被赋予了迷人的眼睛，一千个男人的情人在1929-30年间，塞吉洛拉的故事在拉各斯引起了轰动。这封信的形式是一位年迈的妓女写给周报Akede Eko编辑的一系列信件，现在她已经奄奄一息。在《约鲁巴》一书中，塞吉罗拉讲述了她年轻时如何从调情逐渐滑向拜金者，最后走向全面的妓女之路。她将忏悔和道德警告与对自己不可抗拒的性行为的愉快回忆混合在一起。这篇报道是由Akede Eko的编辑兼老板I.B.托马斯撰写的。但他煞费苦心地让许多读者显然都被塞吉洛拉的痛苦打动了，同情他，甚至寄了10先令来救济他们。其他人恳求托马斯透露女主角的真实身份。该报的定期撰稿人撰写专栏，总结了她的故事的道德教训；有大量评论指出，拉各斯的生活越来越松散，城市女性的轻浮和贪婪是罪魁祸首。这本丛书如此受欢迎，以至于在1930年3月结束后，I.B.托马斯立即将其作为一本书重新出版。第二年，他连载了一个略有删节的英译本，以方便那些热衷于阅读故事但不能阅读约鲁巴语的公民。(1)它通常被认为是“第一部约鲁巴小说”，因此走在了约鲁巴创造性写作传统的前列。约鲁巴后来成为非洲最大、最丰富和最多样化的小说之一，拥有数百种书目和不断的创新。塞吉洛拉阴暗的现实主义和大量的道德说教都在接二连三的约鲁巴小说中得到了回响。任何忽略这一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)这部叙事在现实主义上投入了大量精力，提供了19世纪末20世纪初拉各斯的流行生活和文化的细节，否则就没有很好的记录：流行歌曲、时髦的舞蹈、轶事、俚语和流行谚语。它描绘了一幅世界性的流行文化图景，面向塞拉利昂和黄金海岸的沿海地区，而不是尼日利亚腹地。(3)英语和约鲁巴语之间的语言界面是20世纪约鲁巴兰文化的一个重要特征。英语是由西化的精英们说的。但随着选举民主的第一次试探性实验开始启动，他们越来越多地使用约鲁巴语与受过小学教育的精英较少的人群结成联盟，这些人会读约鲁巴语，可能会被动员到当时的政治竞选中。《塞吉罗拉》英文版的迅速创作--以及它与约鲁巴语版本的重大不同--提供了一个丰富的案例研究，通过它来探索这种语言界面的社会和政治含义。(4)这个故事中关于事实和虚构、揭示和隐藏的引人入胜的游戏，让我们能够探索早期印刷文化如何应对和召集新的公众的问题。文本的寻址策略是复杂的和不断变化的。故事是一种忏悔，但没有揭示内心的生活。作者的笔名被贴在社交精英中高度可见的成员的身份上，他们的活动受到同时代人的详细审查。通过印刷品召集的假定的社区每时每刻都在扩大和收缩。(5)连载的书信体形式使我们能够观察到一种新的体裁几乎就在我们的眼皮底下出现。读者的反应帮助塑造了一周又一周的叙事。叙述和解读是共同成长的。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.