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.
Section 2: Chinese-English Translation (50 points)
Translate the following passage into English.
本公司是一家大型国有房地产上市公司，国家一级房地产开发资质企业，连续五年荣膺中国房地产行业领导公司品牌。2006年7月，公司股票在上海证券交易所上市，截止至2014年底，公司总资产破3600亿元，实现签约金额1366.76亿元。
本公司成立于1992年，经过十年扎实发展，2002年成功完成股份制改造，遂开始实施全国化战略，加强专业化运作，连续实现跨越式发展。目前，公司已完成以广州、北京、上海为中心，覆盖57个城市的全国化战略布局，拥有292家控股子公司，业务拓展到房地产开发、建筑设计、工程施工、物业管理、销售代理以及商业会展、酒店经营等相关行业。
本公司坚持以四大产品为主，适度发展持有经营性物业。在住宅开发方面，逐渐形成了四大产品系列，多元化优质住宅物业的先进创新格局，覆盖中高端住宅、公寓、别墅多种物业形态。商业物业囊括商业写字楼、高端休闲地产、星级酒店、商贸会展、购物中心、城市综合体等，具备多品类物业综合开发的实力。
资料来源考试网校老师主讲教材精讲班课程，完整讲义下载进入个人中心>>
下载焚题库APP——翻译资格考试——题库——做题，包括章节练习、每日一练、模拟试卷、历年真题、易错题等，可随时随地刷题。【在线做题】>>】【下载APP掌上刷题】
