美国国家公共电台 NPR YA Author Wisdom: Sandra Cisneros

YA Author Wisdom: Sandra Cisneros

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Throughout August, we're bringing you stories and advice from authors who have written for young people about that pivotal moment when they leave home and set out on their own. It's a series we call Next Chapter. Today, we hear from Sandra Cisneros. She's the author of "The House On Mango Street" and "Carmelo." She came of age in Chicago in the early 1970s.

SANDRA CISNEROS: The person I was was a very protected child-girl with lots of curly¹ disco hair, no bra. My mother was always kind of checking on me when I left the house. And I had a little T-shirt that said merci.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DISCO LADY")

JOHNNIE TAYLOR: (Singing) Shake it up, shake it down. Move it in, move it 'round disco lady.

CISNEROS: I was obliged² to live at home as an undergraduate³, unlike my brothers, because I was a girl. The struggle for a Mexican-American woman is one of you get married and that's the way you leave home or you get kicked out of home because you've done some sort of sexual⁴ transgression⁵ - you know, you've had a baby or you come out and say you're gay⁶. But I used the winch of poetry. I said that I needed a place of my own to write, which was true. But I also wanted to have freedom to lead my life and to fall in love and to do things I couldn't do under my father's roof.

(SOUNDBITE OF MFSB SONG, "THE SOUND OF PHILADELPHIA")

CISNEROS: The hardest part was I didn't like living alone (laughter). I was afraid at night. There were sounds in the walls and sometimes a bug⁷. And I doubted every day, did I really want to live like this? Is this how writers live? Here I was, cold in a flat that was cold with a heater only in the kitchen and writing by a small, clamp-on architect's lamp. And I would just tape things by other women artists like Mary Cassatt - I can live alone and I love to work. And I - that was my mantra for those years. I would just say, yeah, I can live alone and and I love to work. And then I would cry.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOLDEN YEARS")

DAVID BOWIE: (Singing) Golden years, gold whop whop whop (ph).

CISNEROS: I always tell the young men and women you have to control one, your money. If your money's coming from a source other than from your own earnings⁸ then that other person's going to tell you how to lead your life. So you have to control your own money so that you can control your destino, your own destiny⁹. And for women - and men - control your fertility¹⁰ because that can throw you off your track from your brilliant career.

Now I add a third one, now that I'm 61, and that is learn how to be alone. It's OK to be by yourself. You do not have to be a unit. You do not have to be a father or a mother. And sometimes it's impossible to be that as an artist 'cause you can hardly make enough money to take care of you. We become artists because we're lonely. Then we have to be alone to create the art. And then finally, at my stage of my life, I like being alone and prefer my own company.

(SOUNDBITE OF WALTER MURPHY SONG, "A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN")

MARTIN: That's novelist Sandra Cisneros. We've been hearing the music that was playing on the radio when she left home - Johnnie Taylor, MFSB, David Bowie and Walter Murphy. Sandra Cisneros is part of our series Next Chapter.

(SOUNDBITE OF WALTER MURPHY SONG, "A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN")

1 curly   

adj.卷曲的，卷缩的

参考例句：

• The little boy has curly hair.这小男孩长着一头卷发。
• She is tall and dark with curly hair.她高高的个子，黑皮肤，卷头发。

2 obliged   

adj.感激，感谢v.迫使做( oblige的过去式和过去分词 )；使负义务；满足请求；施惠

参考例句：

• We were obliged, faute de mieux, to drink the local beverage. 因为没有更好的饮料，我们只好将就着喝当地的。
• Parents are obliged by law to send their children to school. 法律规定父母必须送子女入学。

3 undergraduate   

n.大学生，大学肆业生

参考例句：

• Mr. Stone spent his undergraduate days in Columbia University,majoring in economics.斯通先生在哥伦比亚大学度过了他四年的大学生活，主修经济学。
• During this time,they are called undergraduate students.在此期间，他们被称为大学本科生。

4 sexual   

adj.性的，两性的，性别的

参考例句：

• He was a person of gross sexual appetites.他是个性欲旺盛的人。
• It is socially irresponsible to refuse young people advice on sexual matters.拒绝向年轻人提供性方面的建议是对社会不负责任。

5 transgression   

n.违背；犯规；罪过

参考例句：

• The price can make an action look more like a transaction than a transgression.罚款让一个行为看起来更像是一笔交易而不是一次违法行为。
• The areas of transgression are indicated by wide spacing of the thickness contours.那幢摩天大楼高耸入云。

6 gay   

adj.同性恋的；色彩鲜艳的；n.(男)同性恋者

参考例句：

• I don't know he was a gay person.我不知道他是同性恋者。
• Spring comes round to the earth again and everything looks fresh and gay.春回大地，万象更新。

7 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

8 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

9 destiny   

n.命运，定数，天命

参考例句：

• Nobody knows his own destiny.没有人知道自己的命运。
• It was her destiny to become famous.她命里注定出名。

10 fertility   

n.肥沃；繁殖力

参考例句：

• A green manure is a crop grown mainly to improve soil fertility.种植绿肥作物主要是为使土壤更加肥沃。
• She is taking drugs to increase her fertility.她为了增强她的生殖能力而在服药。