原文来源：concordmonitor.com
原文标题：Harper Lee,九游体育 author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ dies at 89
原文地址：https:九游体育下载//www.concordmonitor.com/Archive/
译者：ECHO_CHENCCH
https:九游体育官网//article.yeeyan.org/view/591601/507278
Harper Lee was an ordinary woman as stunned as anybody by the extraordinary success of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“It was like being hit over the head and knocked cold,” Lee — who died Friday at age 89，said during a 1964 interview. “I didn’t expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers but at the same time I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird” may not be the Great American Novel. But it’s likely the most universally known work of fiction by an American author over the past 70 years, Lee was cited for her subtle, graceful style and gift for explaining the world through a child’s eye, but the secret to the novel’s ongoing appeal was also in how many books this single book contained.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” was a coming-of-age story, a courtroom thriller, a Southern novel, a period piece, a drama about class, and — of course — a drama of race.”All I want to be is the Jane Austen of South Alabama,” she once observed.The story of Lee is essentially the story of her book, and how she responded to it. She was a warm, vibrant and witty woman who played golf, fished, ate at McDonald’s, fed ducks by tossing seed corn out of a Cool Whip tub, read voraciously, and got about to plays and concerts. She just didn’t want to talk about it before an audience.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” was an instant and ongoing hit, published in 1960, as the civil rights movement was accelerating. It’s the story of a girl nicknamed Scout growing up in a Depression-era Southern town. A black man has been wrongly accused of raping a white woman, and Scout’s father, the resolute lawyer, defends him despite threats and the scorn of many.Praised by The New Yorker as “skilled, unpretentious, and totally ingenious,” the book won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into a memorable movie in 1962.
“Mockingbird” inspired a generation of young lawyers and social workers, was assigned in high schools all over the country and was a popular choice for citywide, or nationwide, reading programs, although it was also occasionally removed from shelves for its racial content and references to rape.By 2015, sales topped 40 million copies.
When the Library of Congress did a survey in 1991 on books that have affected people’s lives, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was second only to the Bible.Lee herself became more elusive to the public as her book became more famous. At first, she dutifully promoted her work. She spoke frequently to the press, wrote about herself and gave speeches, once to a class of cadets at West Point.But she began declining interviews in the mid-1960s and, until late in her life, firmly avoided making any public comment about her novel or her career.
Her novel, while hugely popular, was not ranked by many scholars in the same category as the work of other Southern authors Decades after its publication, little was written about it in scholarly journals. Some critics have called the book naive and sentimental, whether dismissing the Ku Klux Klan as a minor nuisance or advocating change through personal persuasion rather than collective action.
哈珀李是一个平凡的女人，她和所有人一样惊叹于《杀死一只知更鸟》取得的不平凡成功。
“就像当头棒喝然后全身发冷一样”，哈珀李，在89岁时的一个星期五逝世，在1964年中的采访中如是说，“我没想过书会卖得出去。那时候我希望评论家可以笔下留情，但同时我又有那么一点希望有人会喜欢她，这就足以鼓舞我”。
《杀死一只知更鸟》，也许不是一部宏大的美国小说。但她有可能是过去70年来最广为人知的出自美国作家之手的小说。哈珀李因其细腻优美的风格和用童真视角来阐释事物的天赋而被口耳相传，但是作品持续不断吸引力的秘密在于这本书包含了许多其他书在内。
《杀死一只知更鸟》是一个成长的故事，一部法庭惊悚片，一个南方的故事，一个时期的剪影，一部关于阶级的戏剧，当然，一部种族的大戏。“我就是想要成为南方阿拉巴马的简奥斯丁”哈珀李曾经如是说。她的故事在本质上就是书的故事以及她的态度。她是一个温暖、有朝气而且风趣的女性，她打高尔夫、钓鱼、吃麦当劳、用装在清凉维普桶里的玉米种子喂鸭子、大量地阅读、看戏剧和音乐会。她只是不想在读者面前谈论这些种种。
《杀死一只知更鸟》在20世纪60年代发表，正直公民权利运动加剧的时候，从发表时起就一直深受广大读者喜爱。这是大萧条时期在一个南部小镇里，小名叫斯寇特的女孩的成长故事。故事讲述了一名黑人被诬告强奸白人女性，斯寇特果敢的父亲无惧恐吓和他人的嘲笑坚定为其辩护的故事。《杀死一只知更鸟》被《纽约客》赞赏：“有计谋、含蓄、独创”，获得了普利策奖，并在1962年被制作成了一部令人难忘的电影。
《知更鸟》激励了一代年轻律师和社会活动家，并在全国范围的中学得到推广，是全市全国阅读计划的热门选择，尽管偶尔还是会因其种族和强奸的内容而被下架。到2015年，《杀死一只知更鸟》销量突破了4千万册。
当1991年美国国会图书馆进行一项关于“曾经给予人生影响的书”的调查时，《杀死一只知更鸟》位列第二，排位仅次于《圣经》。当《杀死一只知更鸟》有更多的人了解的时候，公众对于哈珀李本人却变得更加神秘。
一开始的时候，她会很尽责地推销作品。频繁地接受报社采访，写关于自己的大学并且曾经给西点军校的士官发表公开演讲。但是在20世纪60年代中期，她开始拒绝接受采访，到了晚年，坚决避免做出任何关于她的小说和人生的任何公开评价。
她的作品，虽然很受欢迎，但很少学者将其作品与其他南部作家的同类作品划
为一列。出版之后的几十年，很少学术期刊对她进行研究。
一些评论家将这本书描述为天真和青涩，尽管这部书将了3K党化解成了小麻烦以及提倡通过个人说服而非集体行动来达成改变。
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