饥民 The famished

　　For all its eccentricities, MartínCaparrós’s new book powerfully captures their plight

　　马丁·卡帕罗斯的新书虽古怪，却有力地捕捉到饥民的困境

　　DUNCAN GREEN, an in-house thinker at Oxfam,a charity, and an academic at the London School of Economics, makes anintriguing observation. Often, he notes, a person’s views about poverty anddevelopment are shaped by the first region of the developing world that he orshe gets to know. Those who begin by studying Africa tend to have strong viewson foreign aid (whether for or against) and are obsessed with the quality ofgovernment. Those who learned first about east Asia tend to focus on economicgrowth. And those whose first experience is in Latin America are preoccupiedwith justice and power.

　　英国慈善机构乐施会(Oxfam)的内部顾问、伦敦政治经济学院的学者邓肯·格林(Duncan Green)发现了一个有趣的现象。他指出，人们对贫困与发展的看法往往是由自己了解的第一个发展中地区所塑造的。那些一开始研究非洲的人对外国援助有强烈的看法(无论赞成或反对)，而且执着于政府的素质。以研究东亚起步的人倾向聚焦经济增长。而先接触拉丁美洲的人则满脑子都是公正与权力的问题。

　　Martín Caparrós is an Argentinian journalistand novelist whose book, “Hunger”, has already appeared in French, German andSpanish. It has now been updated and translated into English. The bookintroduces English-speaking readers to a Latin American perspective on poverty.But “Hunger” is also highly idiosyncratic—a peculiar, often perplexing tourthrough some of the world’s most desperate places, interspersed with muddledranting. It is an off-putting, infuriating book that nonetheless gets one bigthing right.

　　马丁·卡帕罗斯(Martín Caparrós)是阿根廷人、新闻工作者、小说家。他的著作《饥饿：最古老的问题》(Hunger: The Oldest Problem)此前已经出版了法语、德语和西班牙语版，目前做了修订并译成英文。这本书向英语读者展现了一种拉美视角的贫困观。但这本书也极为特立独行——它穿行于世界上一些生存条件最恶劣的地方，过程离奇古怪，常常令人困惑，还夹杂着混乱的怒骂。这是一本会让人不适甚至大为光火的书，不过它还是有一个重要的可取之处。

　　The best parts of the book are the sectionsin which Mr Caparrós interviews hungry people. He hangs out with a woman whoscavenges a rubbish tip in Argentina, with an Indian widow who has been left todie in a holy city and with a peasant farmer in Niger who keeps glancing at hischunky digital watch. He asks stupid questions, as good journalists do, andgets answers that reveal much about how extremely poor people think.

　　这本书最精彩的部分是卡帕罗斯对饥民的采访。他的访谈对象包括一个在阿根廷的垃圾场里拾荒的女人、一个被遗弃在一座圣城里等死的印度寡妇，还有一个尼日尔农民(他一直盯着卡帕罗斯那块厚重的数字手表)。像优秀记者都会干的那样，他问了一些蠢问题，得到的答案却有力地揭示出极度贫困的人们的想法。

　　Why, the author asks, is an Indian mothertaking her malnourished daughter out of the hospital before she has recovered?Because, the mother explains, her sister-in-law has fallen ill, and she mustlook after the household. What would a poor woman in South Sudan eat, if shecould eat anything? Walwal, she replies—a kind of sorghum porridge. But supposeyou could have meat or fish, Mr Caparrós presses. No: she would eat walwal.

　　卡帕罗斯问，为什么一个印度母亲不等自己营养不良的女儿康复，就带她离开了医院?那位母亲解释说，因为嫂子病了，她必须回去照料家人。他又问南苏丹的一个贫穷妇女，如果什么都能吃到，她想吃什么?她回答说walwal(一种高粱粥)。卡帕罗斯再问，但如果能吃到肉或鱼呢?不要，她说，就要吃walwal。

　　“Hunger” is also a political book. Mr Caparrós believes that peoplego hungry chiefly because the powerful behave in unjust ways. He is againstmultinational agribusiness firms such as Cargill (though not against cropscience), and implies that trade is a major cause of high food prices. Hethinks little of humanitarian or development aid, and describes welfare as “away of maintaining poverty” because it keeps the poor from rebelling. Much ofthis is nonsense, and it is not even clear that the author believes it. He hastravelled too widely and interviewed too many people to hold fast to simpleexplanations.

　　《饥饿》也是一本表达政见的书。卡帕罗斯认为，人们之所以挨饿，主要是因为权贵群体行事不公。他反对美国嘉吉(Cargill)这类跨国农业企业(却并不反对农作物科学)，并暗示贸易是粮价高企的主因。他不屑人道主义或发展援助，认为福利只是“一种维持贫困的方式”，因为这样可以防止穷人造反。这大部分都是胡说八道，甚至也看不明白作者是否真的深信不疑。以他走访范围之广、采访人数之多，不大可能会认定如此简单的解释。

　　Strangest of all are the chapters in whichMr Caparrós steps back to address the reader and his own conscience. More thanonce he poses the question: “How the hell do we manage to live knowing thesethings?” Sometimes he seems to be fighting an internal battle, in which hisdesire for justice pushes against his feelings of despair and horror about thelives of the poorest: “I’ve got enough problems without going around thinkingabout those poor bastards in Africa or Kolkata or those places I don’t even…” Atsuch moments the book seems not just Latin American but distinctivelyArgentinian. Few countries are so thick with psychoanalysts.

　　最奇怪的是卡帕罗斯退回到自身、向读者发问和扪心自问的那些章节。他不止一次提出这个问题：“我们他妈的怎么能明知这些事存在，还能活得下去?”有时他仿佛陷入了自我挣扎，他对公正的渴望与他对赤贫人群生活状况的绝望与恐惧相抵触：“我面对的问题已经够多了，都不用跑去考虑非洲或加尔各答或者其他我甚至都没……的地方的可怜虫。”在这些时候，这本书似乎不仅仅是拉美视角了，而是独具一格的阿根廷视角。很少有哪个国家有这么多心理分析学家。

　　The great thing about “Hunger” is itsrelentlessness. Most books about poverty (indeed, most articles in TheEconomist about poverty) introduce the reader to the poor, then pull back intodispassionate consideration of agricultural productivity, social safety-nets,credit constraints and the like. All that policy talk is fine, but it is nothow extremely poor people think about their lives. Deep poverty and hunger oftenmake no sense to those who suffer those things, except perhaps as evidence ofGod’s will. Misfortune simply hit them, when the rains failed, when a husbandvanished or a child fell ill. Mr Caparrós holds you there, in the unsettling presenceof the desperate, and forces you to listen to them.

　　《饥饿》的一大优点是它的残酷。大多数有关贫困的书(当然还有本刊有关贫困的大多数文章)都会向读者介绍穷人的生活，然后又回到对农业生产率、社会保障网、信贷限制等问题的冷静思索。所有这些政策讨论都很好，但却并不是赤贫人群看待自己生活的方式。对遭受这些苦难的人来说，赤贫和饥饿除了有可能是上帝旨意的证明外，往往没有什么可以理解的意义。久旱无雨、丈夫突然消失、孩子生病——这些纯粹就是不幸降临。卡帕罗斯按住你，让你不安地直面那些绝望的人，强迫你去倾听他们的声音。

　　注：双语全文源自经济学人