哈珀·李 | 永别的知更鸟

, whose 1961 novel To Kill a Mockingbird became a national institution and the defining text on the racial troubles of the American deep south, has died at the age of 89.

哈珀·李去世了，享年89岁。她1961年撰写的小说《杀死一只知更鸟》成为美国经典和南部腹地种族问题的范本。

Lee, or Nelle as she was known to those close to her, had lived for several years in a nursing home less than a mile from the house in which she had grown up in Monroeville, Alabama – the setting for the fictional Maycomb of her famous book. The town’s mayor, Mike Kennedy, confirmed the author’s death.

李——熟悉她的人称她为内丽——在距阿拉巴马州门罗威尔她长大的住所不足一英里远的养老院中度过数年，前者是那本著名小说虚构的梅岗镇的原型。镇长麦克·肯尼迪确认作者过世的消息。

Until last year, Lee had been something of a one-book literary wonder. To Kill a Mockingbird, her 1961 epic narrative about small-town lawyer Atticus Finch’s battle to save the life of a black resident threatened by a racist mob, sold more than 40m copies around the world and earned her a Pulitzer prize. George W Bush awarded her the presidential medal of freedom in 2007.

直到去年，李还是“一书走文坛”。1961年的史诗级作品《杀死一只知更鸟》讲述小镇律师阿提克斯·芬奇拯救生命受到种族主义群众威胁的一个黑人居民，小说全世界销量达4000万册，获得普利策奖。2007年，乔治·沃克·布什授予她总统自由奖章。

But from the moment Mockingbird was published to almost instant success the author consistently avoided public attention and insisted that she had no intention of releasing further works. 

但自从出版《知更鸟》一举成功后，作者一直远离公众，坚持无意再出新作。

That self-imposed purdah ended abruptly when, amid , it was revealed a year ago that a second novel had been discovered, which was  in July 2015.

这种自藏深闺一年前突然终止，在争议重重中，第二本小说《设立守望者》于2015年7月问世。

The house where Lee lived for years with her sister Alice sat quiet and empty on Friday. The inside of the house appeared unchanged from when she lived there – antique furniture was stacked with books, audio cassettes and gift baskets.

周五，李和妹妹爱丽丝共居多年的房子空空荡荡，房子里陈设看起来并未改变，古旧的加剧上摆满书、磁带和礼物篮。

Her neighbor for 40 years, Sue Sellers, said Lee would have appreciated the quiet. “She was such a private person,” she said. “All she wanted was privacy, but she didn’t get much. There always somebody following her around.” In recent years Lee’s health had declined. 

她四十年的老邻居苏·塞勒斯说李喜欢安静。“她独来独往，她最看重隐私，可却没多少可言，总有人围在周围。”这几年，李的身体每况愈下。

Seller said the last time she spent any real time with Lee they went to breakfast together. “The whole way home she drove her big car in the turn lane,” she said. “She couldn’t see. I was scared to death.”

塞勒斯说她上次和李共度时光是二人一起吃早饭。“她一路上开着大号车左右变道，她都看不清，吓死我了。”

The last time she saw Lee was a few months ago at the Meadows nursing home. Sellers brought flowers. “She just hollered out: ‘I can’t see and I can’t hear!’” Sellers said. “So I just told her goodbye.”

而最后一次看到她则是几个月前在米多斯养老院。塞勒斯送了花。“她只是喊，‘我看不到，我听不到’，我就和她告别了。”

Lee was born in Monroeville in 1926 and grew up under the stresses of segregation. As a child she shared summers with another aspiring writer, Truman Capote, who annually came to stay in the house next door to hers and who later invited her to accompany him to Holcomb, Kansas, to help him research his groundbreaking 1966 crime book In Cold Blood.

李1926年生于门罗威尔，在种族隔离的压力下长大。儿时和另一位前途远大的作家杜鲁门·卡波特共度暑假，后者每年都住到她隔壁来，后来还请她去堪萨斯的霍尔科姆，帮他调研1966年出版的开创性犯罪小说《冷血》。

Capote informed the figure of the young boy Dill in Mockingbird, with his friend the first-person narrator Scout clearly modelled on the childhood Lee herself.

卡波特为《知更鸟》中的小男孩形象迪尔提供了素材，他的朋友就是以儿时的李为基础的第一人称叙述者斯科特。

Lee was the youngest child of lawyer Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Finch Lee. 

李是律师阿马萨·科尔曼·李和弗朗西斯·芬奇·李的小女儿。

Her father acted as the template for Atticus Finch whose resolute courtroom dignity as he struggles to represent a black man, Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white woman provides the novel’s ethical backbone.

父亲是律师芬奇的模本，他在法庭上凛然决绝的形象成就了小说的伦理脊梁，芬奇不畏艰难地为黑人汤姆·罗宾逊辩护，后者被指控强奸了一名白人妇女。

Last year’s publication of Go Set a Watchman obliged bewildered fans of the novel to reappraise the character of Finch. 

去年出版的《设立守望者》则强迫大惑不解的小说迷们重估芬奇的性格。

In that novel, which was in fact the first draft of Mockingbird that had been rejected by her publisher, Finch was portrayed as having been a supporter of the South’s Jim Crow laws, saying at one point: “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and ­churches and theaters?”

该小说实际上是被出版商拒绝的《知更鸟》的草稿，芬奇被塑造成美国南部种族隔离制度的支持者，曾说：“你想让一车的黑鬼到我们的学校、教堂和剧场里吗？”

Within minutes of the announcement of the novelist’s death, encomiums began to flow. Her literary agent Andrew Nurnberg said in a statement: “We have lost a great writer, a great friend and a beacon of integrity.”

小说家过世后几分钟内，赞誉不绝。她的文学代理商安德鲁·努恩伯格在生命中说：“我们失去了一位伟大的作家、伟大的朋友、正义的灯塔。”

He added: “Knowing Nelle these past few years has been not just an utter delight but an extraordinary privilege. When I saw her just six weeks ago, she was full of life, her mind and mischievous wit as sharp as ever. She was quoting Thomas More and setting me straight on Tudor history.” 

他还说：“这些年与内丽相识不仅全心愉快，且荣幸非常。六周前见到她时，她还生气勃勃，思维和诙谐敏锐如常。她还引用托马斯·莫尔的话，纠正我对都铎王朝历史的理解。”

Michael Morrison, her publisher at HarperCollins US, said: “The world knows Harper Lee was a brilliant writer but what many don’t know is that she was an extraordinary woman of great joyfulness, humility and kindness. 

她在美国哈珀柯林斯出版社的出版人迈克尔·莫里森说：“世界都知道哈珀·李是一个出色的作者，但许多人不知道她还是个不同凡响的女人，快乐，谦逊，善良。”

She lived her life the way she wanted to – in private – surrounded by books and the people who loved her.” 

她依从自己的方式低调生活，与书和爱他的人相伴。

In Lee’s home state of Alabama, an epicenter of the violent upheavals over civil rights that immediately preceded the publication of Mockingbird, literary experts reflected on the power of the novel to shift the ingrained assumptions of white Alabamans. 

《知更鸟》一俟出版，李的家乡阿拉巴马州就成为民权暴力运动的中心，这里的文学研究者也反思了小说的力量如何转变白肤阿拉巴马人根深蒂固的想法。

Jacqueline Trimble, president of the Alabama Writers’ Forum that bequeaths the annual Harper Lee award for literary excellence, said that the book had a profound effect on white residents of the state.

阿拉巴马作家论坛主席杰奎琳·特里姆博说该书对州里的白人居民产生深远影响。每年该论坛都颁发哈珀-李杰出文学奖。

“She was able to take the politics of the civil rights era and make them human. She showed people that this was about their neighbors, their friends, someone they knew, not just about the issues,” Trimble said.

“她能捕捉到民权时代的政治，并将其人文化。她向人们展示这关乎邻居、朋友和他们认识的人，而不只是议题。”

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, tweeted a quote from Mockingbird: “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克推送了《知更鸟》中的一句话：“不遵从从众法则的是一个人的良心。”