Why we need humble writers
By: Gabriella Gricius
Tags: Travel, Writing, Writer, Lifestyle, Self

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

My first foray into non-fiction pleasure reading was travelogues, the stories of people venturing dangerously into some new unknown part of the world, their own tales somehow seamlessly combined with the tales of history and wars fought long ago. I found the beauty of the written word spellbinding, the way that writers could bring together two disparate narratives, both telling a story and giving the reader a sense of a place. If I closed my eyes, I could just imagine a hunched over figure writing furiously in a journal, capturing those once-in-a-lifetime memories in shorthand.

Often, I wished I too could be like the travellers of lore, hitching rides on a random bus, striking up conversation with a stranger, hearing the stories that you only hear by reaching out to other humans and truly listening.

As I’ve read more nonfiction and entered the graduate school mindset of problematizing everything, it’s become harder to enjoy those kind of novels. A part of me always starts to ask about perspective, wondering what kind of biases are being left out in the telling of the story, how the author wants the story told. It’s the same question that I have with any piece of literature that wants to convince you of their point. Why? What are you selling?

“I do my best. I look, I listen, but in the end I know it’s my story. Not Kamau’s, not Kenya’s, or the Kenyans’. Those stories are yet to be heard.” -Anthony Bourdain

Even though I discovered him a bit late, Anthony Bourdain quickly became one of my favorite authors. His unique way of building a picture in my mind was utterly fascinating, somehow completely different than the dry tales of travels throughout Arabia. And he was humble about it. While he may have been blunt and never ever minced words, he understood deeply the humbling aspect that comes of telling someone else’s story.

Like many others, I was completely stricken when I heard of his death. He was someone I looked up and one day thought I might have the chance to meet. But one good thing that’s come out of his death is that more people are sharing his work. Whether it be his classic Kitchen Confidential or one of the many episodes he recorded about traveling the world to meet its’ food and people. The quote above I read a few weeks ago, and it’s stayed with me ever since.

There’s a certain humility that writers should have when taking responsibility of telling the story of someone else.

Especially for travel writers, there’s a certain level of modesty that you need when writing a story about someone else. Because in short, they’re human. The way they tell their story is unique only to them, and you can’t tell it verbatim. Even if you did, it wouldn’t be their story. It would still be yours, tinted with all of the emotion and words that you yourself used to tell it.

Writing is a complex art. Each letter and word that we pen as writers is our own. There’s not a special equation that somehow turns the story of one person or one country into an exact replica. Well. There is plagiarism. But that’s not exactly what I’m referring to.

Anthony Bourdain was a humble writer. He didn’t believe he was telling the story as it objectively was, but rather he was telling the story through his own rose-tinted glasses. He could write personally about his stories of addiction and loss and drugs from here to Cancun, but when he wrote — it was about his experience. Being cognizant of that isn’t easy. It can be so simple to trick yourself into believing that you’re the only person who can tell a story right. That your experience, past or present, gives you the right to narrate convincingly.

We need humble writers. We need writers to remind us that the written word is just another lens through which to see the world. That that lens is not perfect, and it is never without its ingrained stereotypes.

Perhaps they should teach humility in writing schools, nestled between Journalism 101 and Creative Writing 205. Instead of teaching how to properly use a hashtag (not to say that shouldn’t be taught as well), maybe adding a course on humility would do some good for all the writers out there. Particularly us writers in the Western world have a tendency to look down upon who we write about as subjects. Victims of genocide are human too.

When I read travel writers now, I read with a critical eye. Some, like Anthony Bourdain, stand up under the scrutiny. Others, not so much. And between them, the difference is humility. Knowing that you cannot tell another person’s story without inserting a bit of yourself in it. Being aware that our words are a reflection of ourselves, no matter how many editors look over the piece. And listening without prejudice. We need more of them, and if they don’t exist — we have to become them.

Thanks for reading Writers Guild — A Smedian publication

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