英语美文背诵 灰色晨曦中那通往彩虹的路

J.K.Rowling,author of Harry¹ Potter Like that of her own character, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling's life has the luster² of a fairy tale.

J.K.罗琳的生活展现出童话般的光芒，如同她所创造的魔法小巫师—哈利·波特。

Divorced, living on public assistance in a tiny Edinburgh flat with her infant daughter, Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at a table in a cafe during her daughter's naps — and it was Harry Potter that rescued her.

经历了一次失败的婚姻后，这个靠救济金过日子，独自抚养女儿的单亲妈妈和出生不久的女儿搬到了爱丁堡的一个狭小的公寓里。为了逃离又小又冷的房间，她常待在住家附近的咖啡馆里，待女儿熟睡后开始写作，女儿睡多久，她就写多久。就在这个小咖啡馆里，她写出了《哈利·波特与魔法石》，塑造了那个将她带离窘境的小巫师。

Joanne Kathleen Rowling entered the world in Chipping Sodbury General Hospital in Bristol, England, a fitting³ beginning for someone who would later enjoy making up strange names for people, places and games played on flying broomsticks. Her younger sister Di was born just under two years later.

乔安·凯瑟琳·罗琳出生在英格兰的一家综合医院里，这对一个喜欢给别人起奇怪名字，喜欢坐着扫帚满场飞奔的小姑娘来说，是个合适的开始。她的妹妹两年后来到这个世上。

Rowling remembers that she always wanted to write and that the first story she actually wrote down, when she was five or six, was a story about a rabbit called Rabbit.

罗琳从小就喜欢写作，五、六岁时就写了一篇跟兔子有关的故事。

Many of her favorite memories center around reading—hearing The Wind in the Willows⁴ read aloud by her father when she had the measles⁵ , enjoying the fantastic adventure stories of E.

小时候美好的记忆似乎总是围绕阅读的—得麻疹时听爸爸大声讲故事，读奇异的冒险故事，沉浸在奇妙的故事世界里。

Nesbit, reveling in the magical world of C. S. Lewis's Narnia, and her favorite story of all, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. At Exeter University Rowling took her degree in French and spent one year studying in Paris.

大学里，罗琳主修法语，在巴黎留学一年。毕业后，她搬去伦敦担任调查员和双语秘书。

After college she moved to London to work for Amnesty International as a researcher and bilingual secretary. The best thing about working in an office, she has said, was typing up stories on the computer when no one was watching.

罗琳回忆说，那段时间最有趣的事情就是趁没人的时候在电脑上打小说。

During this time, on a particularly long train ride from Manchester to London in the summer of 1990, the idea came to her of a boy who is a wizard and doesn't know it. He attends a school for wizardry--she could see him very plainly in her mind.

1990 年，时值 24 岁的罗琳坐在由曼撤斯特出发前往伦敦的火车上，哈利·波特闯入了她的生命。她可以在脑海里清晰地勾画他的模样，看到他进入魔法学校。

By the time the train pulled into King's Cross Station four hours later, many of the characters and the early stages of the plot were fully⁶ formed in her head. The story took further shape as she continued working on it in pubs and cafes over her lunch hours.

四小时后，当火车驶入王十字车站时，大部分人物和故事的前期框架已经在她的脑海里形成了。当她午餐时间坐在咖啡馆里继续构思时，故事的结构变得更加清晰。

In 1992 Rowling left off working in offices and moved to Portugal to teach English as a Second Language. In spite⁷ of her students making jokes about her name (this time they called her "Rolling Stone"), she enjoyed teaching. She worked afternoons and evenings, leaving mornings free for writing. After her marriage to a Portuguese⁸ TV journalist ended in divorce, Rowling returned to Britain with her infant daughter and a suitcase full of Harry Potter notes and chapters.

1992 年，罗琳结束了白领生涯，前往葡萄牙做英语教师。尽管学生们常拿她的名字开玩笑，叫她滚石（英语中 Rowling 与 rolling 同音），她仍然非常喜欢教书。她在下午和晚上去学校工作，上午用来写作。不久后，她与一名葡萄牙的电视台记者结婚，但这段婚姻最终以离婚告终。离婚后，罗琳带着女儿和满满一箱子哈利·波特的笔记与手稿回到了英国。

She settled in Edinburgh to be near her sister and set out to finish the book before looking for a teaching job.

为了能住得靠近妹妹，罗琳在爱丁堡定居下来，准备在找新工作前完成这部小说。

Wheeling her daughter's carriage around the city to escape their tiny, cold apartment, she would duck into coffee shops to write when the baby fell asleep.

她常常推着女儿的手推车四处闲逛，只是为了逃离又小又冷的公寓。她会躲到咖啡馆里，趁女儿睡着时写作。

In this way she finished the book and started sending it to publishers.

就这样，罗琳在咖啡馆里完成了哈利·波特的创作，开始寻找出版商。

It was rejected several times before she found an London agent, chosen because she liked his name--Christopher Little, who sold the manuscript⁹ to Bloomsbury Children's Books.

但她的稿件被多次退回，直到她找到了一个伦敦的经纪人。罗琳之所以会找到他，仅仅是因为喜欢他可爱的名字—克里斯多夫·里特（Christopher Little）。

Rowling was working as a French teacher when she heard that her book about the boy wizard had been accepted for publication.

当罗琳得知这本关于小巫师的小说被出版商接受时，她正在一所学校教法语。

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in June 1997 and achieved almost instant success.

《哈利·波特》才一出版，就大获成功。

With the publication of the American edition, retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in 1998, Rowling's books continued to make publishing history. Harry Potter climbed to the top of all the bestseller lists for children's and adult books.

随着哈利·波特 1998 年在美国的出版，罗琳的书继续创造着出版界的历史。哈利·波特登上了儿童与成人书籍的最佳销售榜的首位。

Indeed, the story of the boy wizard, his Cinderlad childhood, and his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft¹⁰ and Wizardry caught the imagination of readers of all ages.

确实，这个小巫师的故事，他灰姑娘一样的童年，和他在霍格华兹魔法学校的历险引发了各个年龄读者的丰富想象力。

In Britain a separate edition of the first book appeared with a more "adult" dust jacket so that grown-ups reading it on trains and subways would not have to hide their copy behind a newspaper.

在英国，出版商出版了一种更成人化封面的版本，使得大人们能在火车或者地铁里阅读而不用把书藏在报纸后面。

Jo Rowling lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her daughter Jessica and continues to work on writing the seven-book saga¹¹ of Harry Potter.

现在，J.A.罗琳和她的女儿捷西卡住在苏格兰的爱丁堡，继续完成哈利·波特的冒险故事。

1 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

2 luster   

n.光辉；光泽，光亮；荣誉

参考例句：

• His great books have added luster to the university where he teaches.他的巨著给他任教的大学增了光。
• Mercerization enhances dyeability and luster of cotton materials.丝光处理扩大棉纤维的染色能力，增加纤维的光泽。

3 fitting   

n.[pl.]设备，家具，配件，试穿；adj.适合的

参考例句：

• I'm going to a fitting tomorrow.明天我要去试穿新衣。
• The President's address was a fitting end to a bitter campaign.总统的讲话为一场激烈的竞选运动适时画上了句号。

4 willows   

n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木

参考例句：

• The willows along the river bank look very beautiful. 河岸边的柳树很美。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Willows are planted on both sides of the streets. 街道两侧种着柳树。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

6 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

7 spite   

n.（用于短语）虽然，不顾，尽管

参考例句：

• He has modern ideas in spite of his great age.尽管他年事很高，但思想观念却很入时。
• In spite of his anger,his remarks were restrained.他尽管生气，说的话还是有节制的。

8 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

9 manuscript   

n.手稿，原稿，底稿，手写本

参考例句：

• The adaptation of the play for radio manuscript was easy.把剧本改编成广播稿很容易。
• The lost manuscript was found in a repository in France.丢失的手稿在法国的一个存放处被找到了。

10 witchcraft   

n.魔法，巫术

参考例句：

• The woman practising witchcraft claimed that she could conjure up the spirits of the dead.那个女巫说她能用魔法召唤亡灵。
• All these things that you call witchcraft are capable of a natural explanation.被你们统统叫做巫术的那些东西都可以得到合情合理的解释。

11 saga   

n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事，英雄传奇

参考例句：

• The saga of Flight 19 is probably the most repeated story about the Bermuda Triangle.飞行19中队的传说或许是有关百慕大三角最重复的故事。
• The novel depicts the saga of a family.小说描绘了一个家族的传奇故事。