《殺死一隻知更鳥》作者哈珀李去世
Harper Lee, whose first novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” about racial injustice in a small Alabama town, sold more than 10 million copies and became one of the most beloved and most taught works of fiction ever written by an American, has died. She was 89.
哈珀·李(Harper Lee)的第一本小說《殺死一隻知更鳥》(To Kill a Mockingbird)講述的是阿拉巴馬州一座小城裏的種族不公，共賣出1000多萬冊，成爲最受喜愛、最多用作教材的美國小說之一。哈珀·李去世，享年89歲。
Her death was confirmed by HarperCollins, her publisher.
她的死訊得到了她的出版商哈珀柯林斯出版社(HarperCollins)的確認。
The instant success of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the next year, turned Lee into a literary celebrity, a role she found oppressive and never learned to accept. The enormous success of the film version of the novel, released in 1962 with Gregory Peck in the starring role of Atticus Finch, a small-town Southern lawyer who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, only added to Lee's fame and fanned expectations for her next novel.
《殺死一隻知更鳥》1960年出版，很快獲得成功，第二年獲得普利策獎(Pulitzer Prize)，哈珀·李因此成爲文學名人，這個角色讓她覺得很沉重，從未學會接受。1962年，根據這本小說改編的電影上映，由格利高裏·派克(Gregory Peck) 飾演主角阿蒂克斯·芬奇(Atticus Finch)——他是南方小城裏的一名律師，爲一個遭到誣告強姦白人婦女的黑人辯護。電影的巨大成功增長了李的名聲，人們更加期待她的下一部小說。
For more than half a century, it failed to appear. Then, in 2015, long after the reading public had given up on seeing anything more from Lee, a sequel appeared under mysterious circumstances.
在之後的半個多世紀裏，她沒有再出版小說。2015年，在廣大讀者不再指望看到李的任何新書很久之後，一部續集在神祕的情況下出現了。
“I never expected any sort of success with `Mockingbird,”' Lee told a radio interviewer in 1964. “I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers, but, at the same time I sort of hoped someone would like it well enough to give me encouragement.” Instead, she said, “I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.”
1964年，李在接受電臺採訪時說：“我從沒想過《知更鳥》能取得任何成功。我以爲評論家們會很快仁慈地判它死刑，但是與此同時，我有點希望有人會喜歡它，給我一點鼓勵。”她說，但是實際上“我得到了太多讚美，從某種程度上講，這和我本來期望的快速仁慈的死亡一樣可怕”。
Lee gained a reputation as a literary Garbo, a recluse whose public appearances to accept an award or an honorary degree counted as important news simply because of their rarity. On such occasions she did not speak, other than to say a brief thank you.
李被譽爲文學界的嘉寶(Garbo)，過着隱居生活，極少公開露面，偶爾接受獎項或榮譽學位都會成爲重要新聞。在這些場合，她從不演講，只是簡短地說“謝謝”。
In Feb. 2015, her publisher, Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, dropped a bombshell. It announced plans to publish a manuscript, long thought to be lost, that Lee submitted to her editors in 1957 under the title “Go Set a Watchman.” Lee's lawyer, Tonja B. Carter, had chanced upon it, attached to an original typescript of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” while looking through Lee's papers, the publishers explained. It told the story of Atticus and Scout 20 years later, when Scout is a young woman living in New York, and included several scenes in which Atticus expresses conservative views on race relations seemingly at odds with his liberal stance in the earlier novel.
2015年2月，她的出版商、哈珀柯林斯出版社旗下的哈珀宣佈了一個令人震驚的消息。它計劃出版一份被認爲早已遺失的手稿，那是李1957年提交給編輯們的手稿，標題是《設立守望者》(Go Set a Watchman)。出版社解釋說，李的律師託尼婭·B·卡特(Tonja B. Carter)在瀏覽李的文件時偶然發現它附在《殺死一隻知更鳥》原始打字稿後面。它講述的是20年後阿蒂克斯和斯考特(Scout)的故事，那時年輕的斯考特生活在紐約，在某些場景中，阿蒂克斯表達了一些關於種族關係的保守觀點，似乎與之前小說中他的自由主義立場不太一致。
The book was published in July with an initial printing of 2 million and, with enormous advance sales, immediately leapt to the top of the fiction best-seller lists, despite tepid reviews.
這本小說於2015年7月出版，初印200萬冊，由於預售量巨大，它很快躍升至虛構類暢銷書榜首，儘管它並未受到熱烈好評。
The book soared miles above such criticisms. By the late 1970s “To Kill a Mockingbird” had sold nearly 10 million copies, and in 1988 the National Council of Teachers of English reported that it was being taught in 74 percent of the nation's secondary schools. A decade later Library Journal declared it the best novel of the 20th century.
這些批評並未阻擋這本小說的人氣。到20世紀70年代末，《殺死一隻知更鳥》已售出近1000萬冊，1988年，美國英語教師全國委員會(National Council of Teachers of English)報告稱，這本小說被美國74%的中學用作教材。十年後，《圖書館雜誌》(Library Journal)宣佈，它是20世紀最好的小說。
Nelle Harper Lee was born in the poky little town of Monroeville, in southern Alabama, the youngest of four children. “Nelle” was a backward spelling of her maternal grandmother's first name, and Lee dropped it when “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published, out of fear that readers would pronounce it Nellie, which she hated.
內爾·哈珀·李(Nelle Harper Lee)出生在阿拉巴馬州南部小城門羅維爾(Monroeville)，是四個孩子中最小的一個。內爾是她外祖母名字的反向拼寫，李在出版《殺死一隻知更鳥》時去掉了這個名字，因爲擔心讀者會把它念成Nellie，她很討厭這種念法。
Her father, Asa Coleman Lee, was a prominent lawyer and the model for Atticus Finch, who shared his stilted diction and lofty sense of civic duty. Her mother, Frances Finch Lee, also known as Miss Fanny, was overweight and emotionally fragile. Truman Capote, a friend of Lee's from childhood, later said that Nelle's mother had tried to drown her in the bathtub on two occasions, an assertion that Lee indignantly denied.
她的父親亞薩·科爾曼·李(Asa Coleman Lee)是著名律師，是阿蒂克斯·芬奇的原型。芬奇生硬的措辭和崇高的公民責任感來源於他。她的媽媽弗朗西絲·芬奇·李(Frances Finch Lee)又稱範妮小姐(Miss Fanny)，她體胖，感情脆弱。李從兒時起的朋友杜魯門·卡波特(Truman Capote)後來說，內爾的媽媽曾兩次想把她溺死在浴缸裏。李憤怒地否定了這一說法。
Lee was a tough little tomboy who enjoyed beating up the local boys, climbing trees and rolling in the dirt. “A dress on the young Nelle would have been as out of place as a silk hat on a hog,” recalled Marie Rudisill, Capote's aunt, in her book “Truman Capote: The Story of His Bizarre and Exotic Boyhood by an Aunt Who Helped Raise Him.”
李小時候是個固執的假小子，喜歡跟當地的男孩子打架，爬樹，在泥地上打滾。卡波特的姨媽瑪麗·魯迪西爾(Marie Rudisill)在自己的書《杜魯門·卡波特：幫助養育他的姨媽講述他奇特的童年》(Truman Capote: The Story of His Bizarre and Exotic Boyhood by an Aunt Who Helped Raise Him)中回憶說：“小內爾穿上連衣裙就像豬戴上大禮帽一樣格格不入。”
One boy on the receiving end of Nelle's thrashings was Truman Persons (later Capote), who spent several summers next door to Nelle with relatives. The two became fast friends, acting out adventures from “The Rover Boys” and, after Nelle's father gave the two children an old Underwood typewriter, making up their own stories to dictate to each other.
喜歡跟內爾打鬧的其中一個男孩就是杜魯門·珀森斯（後來改姓卡波特），有幾個夏天，他住在內爾隔壁的姨媽家。他們倆很快成爲朋友，進行《羅弗男孩》(The Rover Boys)中的探險，內爾的父親送給這倆孩子一臺舊Underwood打字機，他倆自己編故事，讓對方打字。
Capote later wrote Nelle into his first book, “Other Voices, Other Rooms,” where she appears as the tomboy Idabel Tompkins. She made a repeat appearance as Ann Finchburg, nicknamed Jumbo, in his story “The Thanksgiving Visitor.” Lee returned the favor, casting Capote in the role of the little blond tale-spinner Dill in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
後來，卡波特把內爾寫進自己的第一本書《其他聲音，其他房間》(Other Voices, Other Rooms)裏，成爲書中假小子埃達貝爾·湯普金斯(Idabel Tompkins)的原型。在他的小說《感恩節來客》(The Thanksgiving Visitor)中，她再次以安妮·芬奇伯格(Ann Finchburg)的身份出現，暱稱江波(Jumbo)。作爲回報，李在《殺死一隻知更鳥》中把卡波特寫成很會編故事的白人小男孩迪爾(Dill)。
Lee attended Huntingdon College, a local Methodist school for women, where she contributed occasional articles to the campus newspaper and two fictional vignettes to the college's literary magazine. After a year at Huntingdon, Lee transferred to the University of Alabama to study law, primarily to please her father. Her own interests, and perhaps her disposition, led her elsewhere. After her senior year, she spent a summer at Oxford University as part of a student-exchange program. On her return from England, she decided to go to New York and become a writer.
李後來上了當地女子循道公會學校亨廷登學院(Huntingdon College)，她偶爾給學校報紙投稿，還在學校的文學雜誌上發表過兩篇虛構短文。在亨廷登上了一年之後，她轉去阿拉巴馬大學(University of Alabama)學習法律，主要是爲了討父親歡心。她自己的興趣和性情則把她帶到了別的領域。大四之後，作爲交換生，她在牛津大學(Oxford University)呆了一個夏天。從英國回來之後，她決定去紐約當作家。
Lee arrived in Manhattan in 1949 and settled into a cold-water apartment in the East 80s. After working briefly at a bookstore, she found work as a reservations agent, first for Eastern Airlines and later for BOAC. At night she wrote on a desk made from a door. The local colony of displaced Southerners regarded her askance. “We didn't think she was up to much,” recalled Louise Sims, the wife of the saxophonist Zoot Sims. “She said she was writing a book, and that was that.”
1949年，李來到曼哈頓，住在East 80s一個只提供冷水的公寓裏。她在一家書店短暫工作了一段時間，之後開始做預訂員，先是爲東方航空公司(Eastern Airlines)，後來是爲英國海外航空公司(BOAC)。晚上，她在一個用門改成的書桌上寫作。周圍的南方人對她不以爲然。薩克斯管演奏家祖特·西姆斯(Zoot Sims)的妻子露易絲·西姆斯(Louise Sims)回憶說：“當時我們覺得她不會有什麼成就。她說她在寫書，就這樣。”
Editors at Lippincott told Lee that her manuscript read like a string of anecdotes, not a novel, but encouraged her to revise. Eventually they paid a small advance and assigned her to work with Tay Hohoff, an experienced editor with whom she developed a close working and personal relationship.
利平科特出版社(Lippincott)的編輯們對李說，她的書稿讀起來像一連串軼事，不像小說，但是鼓勵她重寫。最後，他們付給她一小筆定金，安排她和資深編輯泰·霍霍夫(Tay Hohoff)合作，她和霍霍夫建立起親密的工作和私人關係。
Signs of its success were visible almost immediately after it was published in July 1960. Both Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild made the novel one of their selections, and Reader's Digest selected it for publication in condensed form. A week after its publication, it jumped to the top of the best-seller lists; it remained there for 88 weeks.
1960年7月，這本小說幾乎一出版就顯現出成功的跡象。每月一書俱樂部(Book-of-the-Month Club)和文學行會(Literary Guild)都選中了它，《讀者文摘》(Reader's Digest)出版了它的縮略版。出版一週後，它躍升至暢銷書榜首，佔據榜首之位88周。
In one of her last interviews, with a Chicago radio show in 1964, Lee talked in some detail about her literary ambition: to describe, in a series of novels, the world she grew up in and now saw disappearing. “This is small-town middle-class Southern life as opposed to the Gothic, as opposed to `Tobacco Road,' as opposed to plantation life,” she told her interviewer, adding that she was fascinated by the “rich social pattern” in such places. “I would simply like to put down all I know about this because I believe that there is something universal in this little world, something decent to be said for it, and something to lament in its passing,” she continued. “In other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of South Alabama.”
1964年，李在接受芝加哥一家電臺採訪（那時她最後幾次接受採訪）時較爲詳細地講述了自己的文學志向：用一系列小說講述她成長過程中經歷的如今正在消失的那個世界。“我想講述南方小城中產階級的生活，不是哥特式的，不是《菸草路》裏的那種生活，也不是種植園的生活，”她對採訪者說。她說自己癡迷於這些地方“豐富的社會模式”。她接着說：“我只是想把自己知道的關於這裏的一切寫下來，因爲我相信這個小世界裏有某種共通的東西，有值得講述的高尚事物，它的逝去值得哀悼。換句話說，我唯一想要的就是做阿拉巴馬南部的簡·奧斯汀(Jane Austen)。”
News of the rediscovery of “Go Set a Watchman” threw the literary world into turmoil. Many critics, as well as friends of Lee, found the timing and the rediscovery story suspicious, and openly questioned whether Lee, who was shielded from the press by Carter, was mentally competent to approve its publication. It remained an open question, for many critics, whether “Go Set a Watchman” was anything more than the initial draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
重新發現《設立守望者》的消息在文學界引起軒然大波。很多評論家以及李的很多朋友覺得重新發現書稿的時機和故事很可疑，公開質疑李是否精神健全，能否同意出版。卡特不讓李接受媒體採訪。對很多評論者來說，《設立守望者》是否就是《殺死一隻知更鳥》的初稿仍是一個懸而未決的問題。
In a statement, Lee, who said that she had assumed the manuscript was lost, wrote, “After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication.”
李在聲明中說，她以爲那部手稿已經遺失，“經過再三思考，我給少數幾個我信任的人看了這部手稿，他們認爲它值得出版，我聽了很高興。”
