TED演讲:格格不入者的心声(4)

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

These were not famous, best-selling authors, 她们不算是最知名和畅销的作家，

but to me, they were women-writer titans.  但是我把她们奉若神明。

Carole Maso wrote the book that later became my art bible¹. 卡罗尔·马索的书后来成为了我的艺术指导。

Lynne Tillman gave me permission to believe that there was a chance my stories could be part of the world. 琳恩·蒂尔曼给了我信心让我相信，将来我的故事会被世界上的人所知晓。

And Peggy Phelan reminded me  佩吉·费伦则提醒我

that maybe my brains could be more important than my boobs. 我的头脑比胸部更加重要。 

They weren't mainstream² women writers,  她们不是主流女作家，

but they were cutting a path through the mainstream with their body stories, 但是她们用自己的故事题材在主流文学中独树一帜，

I like to think, kind of the way water cut the Grand³ Canyon⁴. 另辟蹊径。

It nearly killed me with joy to hang out with these three over-50-year-old women writers. 能和这三位50多岁的女作家聊天，快把我乐疯了。

And the reason it nearly killed me with joy is that I'd never known⁵ a joy like that. 因为我从来不知道 生活可以这么开心。

I'd never been in a room like that.  我的生活中从来没有打开过这样美好的一扇门。

My mother never went to college.  我的母亲没有上过大学。

And my creative career to that point was a sort of small, sad, stillborn thing. 从这一点来说我的创作生涯本来就是一个很小的，卑微的，会胎死腹中的事。

So kind of in those first nights in New York I wanted to die there. 在纽约的前几天我希望就死在那里。

I was just like, "Kill me now.  I'm good. This is beautiful." 我想说“杀了我吧。我要葬在这美好之中。”

Some of you in the room will understand what happened next. 接下来发生了什么，屋子里的一些人会理解。

First, they took me to the offices of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 首先，他们把我带到了法勒，斯特劳斯和吉鲁的办公室。

Farrar, Straus and Giroux was like my mega-dream press. 法勒，斯特劳斯和吉鲁是我的终极梦想出版社。

I mean, T.S. Eliot and Flannery O'Connor were published there. 艾略特的诗集和弗兰纳里·奥康纳的小说都在那里出版。

The main editor guy sat me down and talked to me for a long time, 主编让我坐下和我聊了很久，

trying to convince⁶ me I had a book in me about my life as a swimmer. 一直在试图让我相信我写了一本关于我自己是游泳运动员的书。

You know, like a memoir⁷.  就像用备忘录让我回忆一样。

分享到：