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AnnMorgan_2015G-_我的阅读世界年_

It's often said that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at what's on their bookshelves . 常说看一个人的书架 就能了解到这个人很多事情
bookshelves:n.书架(bookshelf的复数);
What do my bookshelves say about me? 那么我的书架是怎么展现我的呢?
Well, when I asked myself this question a few years ago, 嗯,当几年前我问自己这个问题时
I made an alarming discovery. 我被自己吓了一跳
I'd always thought of myself as a fairly cultured, cosmopolitan sort of person. 我一直觉得自己是一个有教养的 比较与时俱进的人
fairly:adv.相当地;公平地;简直; cosmopolitan:adj.世界性的;四海一家的;n.四海为家者;世界主义者;
But my bookshelves told a rather different story. 但我的书架展现的却是另一回事
Pretty much all the titles on them were by British or North American authors, and there was almost nothing in translation. 大部分的书 作者都是英国或北美的 基本没什么翻译过来的书
Discovering this massive , cultural blind spot in my reading came as quite a shock. 在我的阅读里,我发现了这个庞大的文化盲点 确实挺惊人的
massive:adj.大量的;巨大的,厚重的;魁伟的; cultural:adj.与文化有关的;文化的;与艺术、文学、音乐等有关的; blind spot:n.视线盲区(尤指车辆驾驶员看不见的路段);无视;没有认识;
And when I thought about it, it seemed like a real shame. 当我仔细去想的时候,真的挺遗憾的
I knew there had to be lots of amazing stories out there by writers working in languages other than English. 我知道在这个世界上除了英语 一定还有很多其他语言的有趣的故事
And it seemed really sad to think that my reading habits meant 而我的阅读习惯意味着我估计永远也不会去接触这一类书
I would probably never encounter them. 这想起来让人有点伤心
encounter:v.遭遇,邂逅;遇到;n.遭遇,偶然碰见;
So, I decided to prescribe myself an intensive course of global reading. 所以我下定决心 把自己的阅读范围扩大到世界级的范围
prescribe:v.给…开(药);让…采用(疗法);开(处方);命令; intensive:adj.加强的;集中的;透彻的;加强语气的;n.加强器; global:adj.全球的;总体的;球形的;
2012 was set to be a very international year for the UK; it was the year of the London Olympics. 2012年对于英国来说是非常国际化的一年 这一年伦敦举办了奥运会
And so I decided to use it as my time frame to try to read a novel , short story collection or memoir from every country in the world. 所以我决定把它当成一个时间段 去尝试从世界上不同的国家里 选一本小说来读,不管是短篇的还是自传的
time frame:n.期间时限; novel:adj.新奇的;异常的;n.小说; short story:短篇小说(指一万字以内的小说); memoir:n.回忆录;研究报告;自传;实录;
And so I did. 所以我这么做了
And it was very exciting and I learned some remarkable things and made some wonderful connections that I want to share with you today. 非常刺激 我学到很多有用的东西 也了解到很多有趣的联系 让我很想今天跟大家分享
remarkable:adj.卓越的;非凡的;值得注意的;
But it started with some practical problems. 但万事开头难
practical:adj.实际的;真实的;客观存在的;n.实习课;实践课;
After I'd worked out which of the many different lists of countries in the world to use for my project, 当我整理出这个世界不同国家的 列表后
I ended up going with the list of UN-recognized nations, to which I added Taiwan, which gave me a total of 196 countries. 我又对照了联合国认证的国家列表 所以我增加了台湾 所以总共有196个国家
And after I'd worked out how to fit reading and blogging about, roughly , four books a week around working five days a week, 在我算出如何在一周内 一周五天的时间内 读完并记录日志后,
blogging:v.写网志;写博客(blog的现在分词) roughly:adv.粗糙地;概略地;
I then had to face up to the fact that I might even not be able to get books in English from every country. 我不得不面对这么一个现实 就是我可能无法获取每个国家书籍的英文版
face up to:勇敢地面对;
Only around 4.5 percent of the literary works published each year in the UK are translations, and the figures are similar for much of the English-speaking world. 大约在英国出版的有翻译版本的书籍 仅占全部的4.5% 对于世界上讲英语的其他地区来说,这个数字也差不多
literary:adj.文学的;书面的;精通文学的;
Although, the proportion of translated books published in many other countries is a lot higher. 尽管在许多其他国家 翻译出版的书籍的比例要高很多
proportion:n.比例;部分;份额;均衡;v.摊派;使相称;
4.5 percent is tiny enough to start with, but what that figure doesn't tell you is that many of those books will come from countries with strong publishing networks 4.5%对刚开始来说虽然足够 但这个数字并没有告诉你的 是这些书中很多会来自 拥有强大出版网络的国家
and lots of industry professionals primed to go out and sell those titles to English-language publishers . 而且当中很多专业人士也很想把这些书 卖给英文出版社
professionals:n.[管理]专业人员(professional的复数); primed:adj.待发的;v.使准备好;装填;使泵起动;涂底漆;修剪树枝(prime的过去分词); publishers:n.出版商,出版公司;出版社(publisher的复数);
So, for example, although well over 100 books are translated from French and published in the UK each year, most of them will come from countries like France or Switzerland. 例如,虽然每年有超过100本的法语书 会译成英文在英国发行 但大部分是来自法国或瑞士
French-speaking Africa, on the other hand , will rarely ever get a look-in. 另一方面,在非洲讲法语的地区 则几乎没有机会涉及到
on the other hand:另一方面; rarely:adv.很少地;难得;罕有地;
The upshot is that there are actually quite a lot of nations that may have little or even no commercially available literature in English. 结果就是,有很多很多国家 根本进不了英文文学的商业区 根本进不了英文文学的商业区
upshot:n.结果,结局;要点; commercially:adv.商业上;通商上; literature:n.文学;文献;文艺;著作;
Their books remain invisible to readers of the world's most published language. 对世界上发行语言受众最多的读者来说 这些国家的书籍鲜为人知
invisible:adj.看不见的;n.看不见的人或物;
But when it came to reading the world, the biggest challenge of all for me was that fact that I didn't know where to start. 但当谈到阅读世界这一做法时 对我来说最大的困难就是 我不知道从何入手
Having spent my life reading almost exclusively British and North American books, 我这一生几乎都在阅读 英国和北美的书籍
exclusively:adv.唯一地;专有地;排外地;
I had no idea how to go about sourcing and finding stories and choosing them from much of the rest of the world. 我根本不知道该怎么搜索寻找 去选择世界上大部分其他地方的作品
sourcing:v.(从…)获得;(source的现在分词)
I couldn't tell you how to source a story from Swaziland. 我没办法告诉你要怎么去搜索斯威士兰的文学作品
source:n.来源;水源;原始资料;
I wouldn't know a good novel from Namibia. 我不知道纳米比亚有哪些好的文学作品
There was no hiding it -- 这些作品并没有被藏起来——
I was a clueless literary xenophobe . 我在文学上就是一个外盲
clueless:adj.无线索的;愚蠢的; xenophobe:n.仇外;害怕生人者;畏惧和憎恨外国人的人;
So how on earth was I going to read the world? 那么我到底要怎么去阅读这个世界呢?
I was going to have to ask for help. 我不得不寻求帮助
So in October 2011, I registered my blog, and I posted a short appeal online. 在2011年10月,我注册了我的博客 然后我发了一条简短的求助
registered:adj.登记过的;记名的;挂号的;v.登记;注册;(register的过去式和过去分词) appeal:n.上诉;吸引力;申诉;魅力;v.上诉;呼吁;申诉;恳求;
I explained who I was, how narrow my reading had been, and I asked anyone who cared to to leave a message suggesting what I might read from other parts of the planet. 我解释我是谁 我的阅读面有多窄 我问有没有人愿意 给我留言,建议我应该去读 这个世界上其他地方的那些书
narrow:adj.狭窄的; v.使窄小; n.峡谷; (场所,物品等的)狭窄部分;
Now, I had no idea whether anyone would be interested, but within a few hours of me posting that appeal online, people started to get in touch. 我当时不知道有没有人会给我留言 但在我发了求助后的几个小时内 人们开始给我回复了
At first, it was friends and colleagues . 一开始,是朋友和同事
colleagues:n.同事;同行(colleague的复数);
Then it was friends of friends. 然后就是朋友的朋友
And pretty soon, it was strangers. 很快,就是陌生人
Four days after I put that appeal online, 在我在网上留了那条求助之后的第四天
I got a message from a woman called Rafidah in Kuala Lumpur. 我收到了一条消息它来自一位在吉隆坡叫 Rafidah 的女士
She said she loved the sound of my project, could she go to her local English-language bookshop and choose my Malaysian book and post it to me? 她说她很喜欢我这个项目的意义 问她能不能去当地的英文书店 然后帮我选马来语书籍然后发给我?
I accepted enthusiastically , and a few weeks later, a package arrived containing not one, but two books -- 我满腔热情地接受了 几个星期后 包裹来了,里面不是一本,是两本——
enthusiastically:adv.热心地;满腔热情地;
Rafidah's choice from Malaysia, and a book from Singapore that she had also picked out for me. Rafidah 选的一本是马来西亚的书 还有一本也是她选的,来自新加坡的书
Now, at the time, I was amazed that a stranger more than 6,000 miles away would go to such lengths to help someone she would probably never meet. 当时,我都惊呆了 一个远在6000英里之外的陌生人 会如此用心去帮一个 她从未见过的陌生人
But Rafidah's kindness proved to be the pattern for that year. 但 Rafidah 的善良,成了那一年的常规
Time and again , people went out of their way to help me. 一次又一次,人们用他们的方式来帮我
Time and again:adv.屡次;常常;
Some took on research on my behalf , and others made detours on holidays and business trips to go to bookshops for me. 有些人帮我做了研究 有些人在假期或出差的时候 专门跑一趟书店帮我找书
behalf:n.代表;利益; detours:n.绕路;便道(detour的复数形式);v.绕路而行(detour的第三人称单数形式);
It turns out, if you want to read the world, if you want to encounter it with an open mind, the world will help you. 事实证明,如果你想阅读这个世界 如果你想用开放的思维去与之交流 那么整个世界都会帮你
When it came to countries with little or no commercially available literature in English, people went further still. 对于那些 在商业上没什么机会进入英文文学界的国家来说 人们会更努力地去帮我
Books often came from surprising sources . 这些书籍的来源经常让我出乎意料
sources:n.来源;出处;起源;根源;原因;v.(从…)获得(source的第三人称单数和复数)
My Panamanian read, for example, came through a conversation 举个例子,我的巴拿马阅读,是来自
Panamanian:n.巴拿马人;adj.巴拿马的;
I had with the Panama Canal on Twitter. 推特上我和“巴拿马运河”这个账号的对话
Yes, the Panama Canal has a Twitter account. 是的,巴拿马运河在有推特账号的
And when I tweeted at it about my project, it suggested that I might like to try and get hold of the work of the Panamanian author Juan David Morgan. 当我在推特上发布我这个项目的消息时 它建议说,我可能会想要去读一读 一位叫 Juan David Morgan 的巴拿马作家的作品
tweeted:v.(小鸟)吱吱地叫;啾鸣;(tweet的过去分词和过去式) get hold of:把握;抓住;得到;
I found Morgan's website and I sent him a message, asking if any of his Spanish-language novels had been translated into English. 我找到了作家的网站,然后给他发了一条消息 问他,他的西语小说 有没有被翻译成英文的
novels:n.小说;(novel的复数)
And he said that nothing had been published, but he did have an unpublished translation of his novel "The Golden Horse." 他答复说目前还没有出版 但他确实有一份未出版的英文译文 一本名叫《金马》的小说
unpublished:adj.未公开出版的;未发表过的;
He emailed this to me, allowing me to become one of the first people ever to read that book in English. 他用邮件把译文发给我 允许我成为第一批阅读这本书 的英文版本的读者之一
Morgan was by no means the only wordsmith to share his work with me in this way. Morgan 并不是唯一一个 愿意用这种方式和我分享他的作品的作家
by no means:决不; wordsmith:n.擅长文字的人,舞文弄墨者;作家;
From Sweden to Palau, writers and translators sent me self-published books and unpublished manuscripts of books that hadn't been picked up by Anglophone publishers or that were no longer available, giving me privileged glimpses of some remarkable imaginary worlds. 从瑞典到帕劳 作家和翻译家给我发来他们自己出版的书籍 还有未被以英文为母语的出版商挑中的 或者是不再有机会发表的 所有未出版的手稿 这让我有机会一窥某些精彩的世界
self-published:adj.由作者自行出版的; manuscripts:n.[图情]手稿;草稿(manuscript的复数形式); privileged:adj.有特权的; v.给予特权; (privilege的过去式和过去分词) glimpses:n.一瞥;一看;;v.瞥见;看一眼;开始领悟;(glimpse的第三人称单数和复数) imaginary:adj.虚构的,假想的;想像的;虚数的;
I read, for example, about the Southern African king Ngungunhane, who led the resistance against the Portuguese in the 19th century; and about marriage rituals in a remote village on the shores of the Caspian sea in Turkmenistan. 比如说,我读了 关于南非国王 Ngungunhane 的书籍 他在19世纪领导反抗葡萄牙人 我也读了土库曼斯坦的里海岸边 那些偏僻村庄的结婚仪式
resistance:n.电阻;抵抗;阻力;抗力; Portuguese:adj.葡萄牙的;葡萄牙人的;葡萄牙语的;n.葡萄牙人;葡萄牙语; remote:adj.偏远的;偏僻的;遥远的;久远的; Caspian:adj.里海(附近)的;
I met Kuwait's answer to Bridget Jones. 我还读了科威特版本的《BJ单身日记》
(Laughter) (笑声)
And I read about an orgy in a tree in Angola. 我还读了安哥拉一场树上狂欢
orgy:n.狂欢;放荡;
But perhaps the most amazing example of the lengths that people were prepared to go to to help me read the world, came towards the end of my quest , when I tried to get hold of a book from the tiny, Portuguese-speaking 在人们想尽办法 帮我去阅读这个世界的例子中 可能最让人惊奇的 出现在我网上求助的最后时期 当时我在找一本书
quest:n.追求;寻找;vi.追求;寻找;vt.探索;
African island nation of S?o Tomé and Príncipe. 它来自来自说葡萄牙语的圣多美岛和普林西比岛非洲小岛国
Now, having spent several months trying everything I could think of to find a book that had been translated into English from the nation, it seemed as though the only option left to me was to see if I could get something translated for me from scratch . 花了好几个月,用尽所有我能想到的办法 去找一本从别的国家翻译成英文的书(但都找不到) 我觉得剩下的唯一方式 就是看能不能重新去翻译
option:n.选择;可选择的东西; from scratch:白手起家;从头做起;
Now, I was really dubious whether anyone was going to want to help with this, and give up their time for something like that. 我当时也没什么把握 不知道是否有人愿意帮我 愿意花时间来为我做这样的事
dubious:adj.可疑的;暧昧的;无把握的;半信半疑的;
But, within a week of me putting a call out on Twitter and Facebook for Portuguese speakers, 但,就在我在推特和脸书上发出寻找会讲葡萄牙语的人 这一消息的一周内
I had more people than I could involve in the project, including Margaret Jull Costa , a leader in her field, who has translated the work of Nobel Prize winner José Saramago. 我找到的人多到超乎预期 包括有 Margaret Jull Costa,在她领域的杰出人才 她翻译了获诺贝尔奖的文学作品《若泽·萨拉马戈》
involve:v.包含;需要;牵涉;牵连;影响;(使)参加; Costa:n.[解剖]肋骨;叶脉;[昆]前缘脉; Nobel Prize:n.诺贝尔奖;
With my nine volunteers in place, 然后带着9位志愿者
volunteers:n.志愿者; v.自愿做; (volunteer的第三人称单数和复数)
I managed to find a book by a S?o Toméan author that I could buy enough copies of online. 我找到了一本出自圣多美岛作家的书 然后在网上买了几本
Here's one of them. 这是其中的一本
And I sent a copy out to each of my volunteers. 我给每个志愿者都发了一本
They all took on a couple of short stories from this collection, stuck to their word, sent their translations back to me, and within six weeks, I had the entire book to read. 他们各自从这个系列中选几个短故事 然后开始翻译,然后把译文发给我 在六周内,我已经拥有一本可读的书了
In that case, as I found so often during my year of reading the world, my not knowing and being open about my limitations had become a big opportunity. 类似的情况在我阅读世界那一年经常发生 我的不知,以及无畏自己的局限 成了一个巨大的机遇
limitations:n.局限性;(限制)因素;边界(limitation的复数形式);
it was a chance not only to learn something new and discover a new collection of stories, but also to bring together a group of people and facilitate a joint creative endeavor . 不单是一个学习新知识的机会 探索新文学作品的机会 还是将人们聚集起来 团结起来创新努力的机会
facilitate:vt.促进;帮助;使容易; joint:n.关节; adj.共同的; v.连接,贴合; creative:adj.创造性的; endeavor:n.v.努力;尽力;试图;
My weakness had become the project's strength. 我的局限反倒成了这个项目的优势
The books I read that year opened my eyes to many things. 那一年我看过的书开拓了我的视野
As those who enjoy reading will know, books have an extraordinary power to take you out of yourself and into someone else's mindset , so that, for a while at least, you look at the world through different eyes. 那些享受阅读的人就能体会 书籍有着强大能力把你带出自我 进入别人的思想众 所以,至少有一段时间 你能看到别人眼中的世界
extraordinary:adj.非凡的;特别的;离奇的;临时的;特派的; mindset:n.心态;倾向;习惯;精神状态; for a while:adv.片刻;暂时;一会儿;一时;
That can be an uncomfortable experience, particularly if you're reading a book from a culture that may have quite different values to your own. 这或许不会是一段好过的经历 尤其是你在读一本 文化上与自己的观念大为不同的书
particularly:adv.特别地,独特地;详细地,具体地;明确地,细致地;
But it can also be really enlightening . 但它却可能很有启发性
enlightening:adj.富有启发性的;v.启发;开导;阐明;(enlighten的现在分词)
Wrestling with unfamiliar ideas can help clarify your own thinking. 与不熟悉的想法产生碰撞能帮你更好认识自己的想法
Wrestling:n.摔跤运动;v.摔跤;奋力对付;全力解决;(wrestle的现在分词) unfamiliar:adj.不熟悉的;不常见的;没有经验的; clarify:v.澄清;阐明;得到澄清;得到净化;
And it can also show up blind spots in the way you might have been looking at the world. 也能帮你告诉自己 在你看到这个世界的方式上有哪些盲点
in the way:妨碍;挡道;
When I looked back at much of the English-language literature 当我回头看我从小到大
I'd grown up with, for example, 读过的大多数英文文学
I began to see how narrow a lot of it was, compared to the richness that the world has to offer. 相比世界上其他书籍的丰富程度 这些书籍确实太狭隘了
compared:adj.比较的,对照的; v.相比; (compare的过去式和过去分词) richness:n.丰富;富裕;肥沃;华美;
And as the pages turned, something else started to happen, too. 每翻一页 便长一智
Little by little , that long list of countries that I'd started the year with, changed from a rather dry, academic register of place names into living, breathing entities . 积少成多 我年初列出的国家列表 从一些列枯燥充满学术的地名 变成了活生生会呼吸的实体
Little by little:渐渐;逐渐地; academic:adj.学术的;理论的;学院的;n.大学生,大学教师;学者; entities:n.实体;存在(entity的复数形式);字符实体;
Now, I don't want to suggest that it's at all possible to get a rounded picture of a country simply by reading one book. 现在,我并不想建议说 单靠读一本书就能大致了解一个国家
But cumulatively , the stories I read that year made me more alive than ever before to the richness, diversity and complexity of our remarkable planet. 但积少成多,那一年我读过的故事 它们的对这个世界展示的丰富性,多样化性,和复杂性 让我更有存在感
cumulatively:adv.累积地;渐增地; diversity:n.差异(性):多样性:多样化: complexity:n.复杂性;难以理解的局势
It was as though the world's stories and the people who'd gone to such lengths to help me read them had made it real to me. 就好像是这些世界性的故事 以及那些想办法帮我阅读这些书籍的人们 是他们让我变得真实
These days, when I look at my bookshelves or consider the works on my e-reader , they tell a rather different story. 这些天来,当我看着我的书架的时候 或者在我的电子阅读器上思考这些作品时 它们在诉说这一个不一样的故事
e-reader:电子阅读器;
It's the story of the power books have to connect us across political, geographical , cultural, social, religious divides. 这是一个关于书籍的故事 书能将我们联系在一起,跨越政治,区域,文化,社会,宗教的隔阂
geographical:adj.地理的;地理学的; religious:adj.宗教的;虔诚的;严谨的;修道的;n.修道士;尼姑;
It's the tale of the potential human beings have to work together. 它是人们拥有协同工作的潜能的故事
potential:n.潜能;可能性;[电]电势;adj.潜在的;可能的;势的;
And, it's testament to the extraordinary times we live in, where, thanks to the Internet, it's easier than ever before for a stranger to share a story, a worldview , a book with someone she may never meet, on the other side of the planet. 还有,它是一个证明的故事 证明了我们现在的这个时代,由于有互联网 让一切变得前所未有的方便—— 让一个陌生人来与来自地球另一半素未谋面的另一陌生人 分享一个故事,一种世界关,一本书
testament:n.[法]遗嘱;圣约;确实的证明; worldview:n.世界观; on the other side:另一面;在另一边;
I hope it's a story I'm reading for many years to come. 我希望这是一个我阅读这么多年所追求的故事
And I hope many more people will join me. 我也希望会有更多的人可以与我同阅
If we all read more widely, there'd be more incentive for publishers to translate more books, and we would all be richer for that. 如果我们都扩宽我们的阅读面,那么对于出版商来说 就更有动机去翻译更多书籍 我们就有机会更广地阅读了
incentive:n.动机;刺激;adj.激励的;刺激的; translate:v.翻译;被翻译;被译成;(使)转变;
Thank you. 谢谢
(Applause) (掌声)