One of the many good things I have experienced since I moved to China has been an invigorated interest in reading. With my favorite television programs harder or impossible to access, I turned to the electronic pages of an e-reader.
我來到中國后感受到的眾多好處之一便是我對閱讀的興趣大增。由于喜歡的電視節(jié)目要么不能收看，要么需要大費周章才行，我便打開了電子書。

Since I was eager to learn all about my new home, I turned to Chinese authors as well as foreign authors, including those of the Chinese diaspora. I had read a biography of early revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen when I was about 12, long before I ever imagined living here.
我對新環(huán)境的一切都很好奇，于是我開始閱讀中外作家，包括那些海外華人作家的作品。早在12歲時，我就讀過革命先驅(qū)孫中山的傳記了，但那個時候我從沒想過會在這里生活。

One of my early favorites when I arrived in China was US writer and journalist Peter Hessler, who took the name of 何偉 (He Wei) in China. His River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, about his introduction to China in 1996 as an English teacher in Fuling, Sichuan province — now part of Chongqing — is an excellent primer for newcomers. His descriptions of day-to-day life are insightful, and he captures an interesting point in time as China opened up.
彼得?赫斯勒是我到中國后最先喜歡的作家之一，他在中國叫何偉。赫斯勒來自美國，他也是一名記者，他的《江城》對初來乍到的外國人來說是一本極好的入門書，這本書是關(guān)于1996年他在四川涪陵（現(xiàn)屬于重慶）當(dāng)英語老師時對中國的介紹。他對日常生活的描寫深刻有見解，在中國對外開放之際，及時捕捉到了一個有趣的視角。

I devoured two other well-known Hessler books about China, Oracle Bones and Country Driving. I also read Mo Yan's Red Sorghum, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature, Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China, novels by Pearl S. Buck and Amy Tan and many more.
我還閱讀了赫斯勒另外兩本關(guān)于中國的名作，《甲骨文》和《尋路中國》。還有2012年諾貝爾文學(xué)獎得主莫言的《紅高粱》，埃德加?斯諾的《紅星照耀中國》，以及賽珍珠、譚恩美的小說等等。

Lately I have returned to reading books about Latin America, a region that was my first foreign love.
最近, 我重新讀起有關(guān)拉丁美洲的書籍，這里是我最初向往的異國他鄉(xiāng)。

I am now reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who was a master of magical realism. The book is set roughly in the period from 1880 to 1930 in a Caribbean port based loosely on Cartagena, Colombia.
我目前正在讀的是諾貝爾獎得主、魔幻現(xiàn)實主義大師、哥倫比亞作家加夫列爾?加西亞?馬爾克斯的《霍亂時期的愛情》。這本書的背景設(shè)定在大約1880到1930年間的一個加勒比海港口（以哥倫比亞卡塔赫納海港為原型）。

The book, first published in 1985, centers on a young couple. The woman, Fermina Daza, goes on to marry a blue-blood doctor, while the man, Florentino Ariza, tries to lose himself in affairs while pining away for her for 50 years.
該書于1985年首次出版，故事圍繞一對年輕夫婦展開。女主費爾米納?達(dá)薩嫁給了貴族醫(yī)生費洛倫蒂納?阿里薩，而在共處的50年中，阿里薩一邊為女主憔悴，一邊試圖沉迷在婚外情中。

But it is far from a flowery romance novel, and incorporates death, the meaning of life and how "happily ever after" is never so simple. Cholera is compared with love, in that both can strike quickly, destroy lives and respect neither class nor race.
但這本書絕不只是一部華麗的愛情小說，它還融合了死亡，生命的意義，以及“幸福生活”并不容易等主題。愛情可與霍亂相提并論，因為這兩者都可以迅速襲來，摧毀生命，無視階級地位和種族。

His depictions of an insular, stratified society in a crumbling colonial city being dragged into the modern age are vivid. Garcia Marquez describes a scene in which Fermina disappears for a time: "No one knew anything in a city where everything was known, and where many things were known even before they happened, above all if they concerned the rich."
加西亞?馬爾克斯生動描繪了一個支離破碎的殖民城市中被拖進(jìn)現(xiàn)代的孤立分層的社會，其中有一段描寫費爾米納失蹤的句子：“在這座城市里，人們知曉一切，許多事甚至還沒發(fā)生之前就有人知道，尤其是關(guān)于富人的事，而這件事竟無人知曉?！?/p>

I also have been reading the works of another Nobel Price winner, Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru, who often ties his works more directly to history. His War of the End of the World revolves around an uprising in 19th century Brazil motivated by a messianic cult. Death in the Andes portrays the gritty reality of Andean towns caught amid the Shining Path terror of the late 20th century. The Feast of the Goat is a masterful story of the Trujillo years in the Dominican Republic, complete with courage, cowardice and cruelty and set in the penetrating humidity of the Caribbean country.
我還在讀另一位諾獎得主馬里奧?巴爾加斯?略薩的作品。這位秘魯作家的著作常與歷史話題更直接相關(guān)。他的作品《世界末日的戰(zhàn)爭》講的是19世紀(jì)的巴西，因為對救世主的崇拜而展開的一場起義。而《安地斯山脈上的死亡》則描述了被20世紀(jì)晚期的光輝道路恐怖事件籠罩的安地斯鎮(zhèn)的殘酷事實?！渡窖虻氖⒀纭肥且徊筷P(guān)于多米尼加共和國特魯希略時代的杰作，故事有關(guān)于勇氣、怯懦與殘忍，整個故事籠罩著加勒比海國家的蒙蒙霧氣。

My wife and I have not totally forsworn the screen — Beijing has some very nice movie theaters, and we enjoy videos on DVD and Youku.com. But movies usually pale beside the pictures that master writers can conjure in your head. You can go as fast as you want or slow down and savor a scene.
我和妻子并沒有發(fā)誓不看熒幕作品，北京有一些不錯的電影院，有時我們也會用DVD或者在優(yōu)酷上看視頻。但是與文學(xué)大師在你腦海中描繪的畫面相比，電影通常是蒼白無力的。你盡可匆匆掠過，亦可放慢速度，細(xì)細(xì)品讀一個場景。

I have heard that reading has been declining as electronic devices make access to streaming and video games possible virtually anywhere. But my hope is that young people don't lose the pleasure of reading.
我聽說，由于電子設(shè)備可以讓人在任何地方訪問流媒體、玩電子游戲，人們的閱讀時間一直在減少。但是我希望年輕人不要失去了閱讀的樂趣。

As Garcia Marquez once said, "The duty of the writers is not to preserve the language but to open the way for it in history."
正如加西亞?馬爾克斯曾說，“作家的職責(zé)不是保護(hù)語言，而是為語言在歷史上開辟道路?！?/p>

編審：董靜 丹妮
音頻編輯：焦?jié)?br>來源：CHINA DAILY 微信公眾號：

About the author & broadcaster

Matt Prichard is a copy editor and writer who works on the front page team of China Daily. He has lived in China for more than four years, in Shanghai and Beijing. Before that, he had a 30-year career as a reporter and editor in the United States and Latin America. He has an ABJ from the University of Georgia and did postgraduate work at the Universidad Nacional del Sur in Argentina. He speaks Spanish fluently and is still learning Mandarin.
Contact the writer at mattprichard@chinadaily.com.cn