I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

我那時深信，自己唯一、并且永遠想做的事只有寫小說。但是，我出身貧窮沒有上過大學的父母卻擁有另外的想法。他們當時認為我非凡的想象力僅僅是滑稽的個人怪癖而已，而這并不能用來抵押貸款或確保一份養老金。

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

他們希望我能取得一個可獲得穩定職業的學位，而我卻想讀英語文學。妥協的結果其實讓我們都不滿意，我將選擇現代語言學。但最后報名的時候，還沒等父母的汽車轉過道路盡頭的拐角，我就放棄德語，急速奔入了通往古典文學殿堂的走廊。

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

我不曾記得告訴過他們自己正在研習古典，也許在畢業那天他們才真正發現。在這個星球上的所有課程中，他們應該很難再找到比希臘神學更沒用的課程了，它根本不可能用來取得一把進入一間寬敞舒適衛生間的鑰匙。

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. 

這里需要澄清的是，我并不責怪我的父母。因為埋怨他們指錯方向的時候已經過了，這時的你們已經成熟到能夠自己駕馭人生的方向盤，責任需自負。我還想說，我不能因為自己希望永不經歷貧窮而現實并非如此就怨恨父母。

What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

他們自身貧窮，我也因此而貧窮，而貧窮并非是可以拿來顯示自己高尚、受人尊崇的經歷，對于他們的這種觀點我也堅決支持。貧窮帶來的是恐懼、壓力，有時甚至是沮喪。它意味著數不盡的瑣碎羞辱和辛酸。當然，依靠自己的力量從中爬出來確實值得自豪和驕傲，盡管如此，只有傻瓜才會認為貧窮本身是浪漫的。

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

在你們這么大的時候，我最害怕的并不是貧窮，而是失敗。盡管當時我明顯匱乏在學校念書的勁頭，因為很少去聽課，而大部分時間里我是在咖啡吧寫故事中度過的，但我明白順利通過考試的訣竅。而考試，很多年來一直是衡量我及同齡人人生成敗的標志。

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

我不會無趣地猜想，你們因為年輕，有才華，并受到了良好的教育，就應該一直不知道什么是辛酸、困苦、心碎。才華和智力還從未使任何人免于遭受命運反復無常的折磨，并且我一刻也不認為這里的每一個人都已經擁有不遭受這種困擾的特權，而生活在由此帶來的滿足之中。

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

然而，你們能從哈佛畢業已經說明你們對失敗還并不熟悉。恐懼失敗對你們的激勵作用可能并不亞于渴望成功對你們的鼓舞。事實上，你們對于失敗的概念可能離普通人認為的成功差不了多遠，你們已經在學術上已經站得相當高了。

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by anyconventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

最終，我們都不得不為自己決定，是什么組成了失敗。而如果你愿意，這個世界會相當熱心地提供一組評價準則。所以我想，依照任何傳統的準則，在我畢業日的僅僅 7年之后，可以說，我經歷了一次史詩般的失敗。一段異常短暫的婚姻結束了，我失業并成了單身母親，并且在現代英國，除了沒有無家可歸之外，要多窮又多窮。那時，父母對我的擔心，我對自己的恐懼都匯聚于一處。而且，我那時知道，用任何通常的標準來看，我是最大的失敗。

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

現在，我站在這里并非將要告訴你們失敗是有趣的。我生命的那段時期是灰暗的，并且我沒有料到，就像媒體所描述的那樣，會有一種神話故事般的解決方案。我更不知道這段灰暗的隧道究竟還有多長。在很長的一段時間里，任何閃現出的光芒都只是希望而非現實。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. 

那我為什么還要談失敗的收益呢？很簡單，失敗意味著放棄生命中不必要的東西。我停止追求那些虛幻的自我，并開始把所有的精力都放在唯一對我重要的工作上。

Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

假如真的在其他任何方面成功過，我也許就永遠不會獲得在真正屬于我的舞臺上去成功的決心。我又重獲自由，因為生命中最大的憂慮已成現實，而我還活著，依然擁有一個可愛的女兒，一臺舊打字機和一個大創意。底部的巖石倒成了堅固的基礎，我得以在此之上重建人生。

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

你們可能永遠不會如此失敗，但人生中不可避免會經歷失敗。活著而從不失敗是不可能的，除非生活得過于謹慎，以至于可能就跟從未真正生活過一樣，這種情況下，你就會因預設人生而失敗。

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

失敗給了我一種內在的安全感，這是因順利通過考試從未獲得過的。失敗使我了解自己，這是無法從其他途徑學到的。我發現自己擁有堅強的意志，比預想中更好的自制力，還發現擁有價值真正遠在紅寶石之上的朋友。

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

底部的巖石倒成了堅固的基礎，我得以在此之上重建人生。從挫折中得到的知識使你更加聰明和強大，這些是你們生存能力的保證。你們不會真正認識自己，也不會知道你們之間的關系到底如何，除非你們共同經歷逆境的檢驗。這才是實在的禮物，經歷痛苦后獲得的寶貴知識。而這比任何我取得的資格證書對我的意義要重大的多。

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

若有時光機器或時間轉換器，我會告訴21歲時的我，個人的幸福在于認識到生活并非是一張羅列著學識和成就的清單。你們的資力，你們的履歷，并非你們的生活，雖然你們會遇見和我同歲或年長的人將二者混淆。生活是艱辛的、復雜的，并完全超越所有人的控制，謙遜地認識到這些會使你們經受住生活的沉浮（榮辱興衰）。

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. 

你們也許認為，我選擇想象的重要性作為第二個演講主題，是因為它在重筑我的人生中所起的重要作用，但并不完全如此。

Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

雖然我個人會堅決支持睡前故事的重要價值，但是我已學著從更廣泛的意義來理解想象。想象力不僅是人類設想不存在事物的獨特能力，從而成為一切發明和創新的源泉。從想象力是當之無愧最具改革和啟示能力這點來看，它賦予我們認同和理解這樣一些人的力量，他們的經歷（的處境、感情和動機）我們從未知曉。

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.

這種啟示源自我最早從事的一些工作。這也是我最重要的一份生活經歷，它超越了哈里波特，當然也提供了許多我后來寫進這些書里的元素。雖然我會在午飯時間溜出來寫小說，但我需要在總部設在倫敦的Amnesty國際非洲研究部工作，以此來支付二十幾歲時的房租。

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

在狹小的辦公室里，我讀著男人或女人冒囹圄之險從專*政政*權“走私”出的字跡潦草的書信，他們以此將正在他們身上發生的慘劇告訴外面的世界。我看到消失得無影無蹤的人的照片被他們絕望的家人送來。我讀著經歷酷刑的受害者的證詞，看到記錄那些傷痕的照片。我打開手寫的目擊者對審訊和處決的摘要記錄，以及對綁架和QJ的描述。

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

我的許多同事以前都是政治Fan，他們因為對自己政府的獨到見解而被驅趕出家園或流放逃亡。我們辦公室的來訪者包括來遞送信息的，和想要弄清楚在那些被迫落下隊伍者身上究竟發生了什么的人。

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

我應該永遠不會忘記那個非洲酷刑受害者。一個當時和我年齡相仿的年輕男子。在經歷家鄉對自己靈和肉的所有折磨后，他患上了精神上的疾病。他失控地顫抖著對錄影機講述施加在他身上的殘忍暴行。這個比我還高一英尺的男子脆弱得就像個孩子。后來，當我負責把他護送回地鐵站時，這個生活因暴行而支離破碎的男子優雅而謙遜地跟我握手道別，并祝福我擁有幸福的未來。

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

只要我活著，我還會記得，在一個空蕩蕩的的走廊，突然從背后的門里，傳來我從未聽過的痛苦和恐懼的尖叫。門打開了，調查員探出頭請求我，為坐在她旁邊的青年男子，調一杯熱飲料。她剛剛給他的消息是，為了報復他對國家政權的批評，他的母親已經被捕并執行了槍決。

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

在我20多歲的那段日子，每一天的工作，都在提醒我自己是多么幸運。生活在一個民選政府的國家，依法申述與公開審理，是所有人的權利。

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

每一天，我都能看到更多有關惡人的證據，他們為了獲得或維持權力，對自己的同胞犯下暴行。我開始做噩夢，真正意義上的噩夢，全都和我所見所聞有關。

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

同時在這里我也了解到更多關于人類的善良，比我以前想象的要多很多。

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

大赦動員成千上萬沒有因為個人信仰而受到折磨或監禁的人，去為那些遭受這種不幸的人奔走。人類同理心的力量，引發集體行動，拯救生命，解放囚犯。個人的福祉和安全有保證的普通百姓，攜手合作，大量挽救那些他們素不相識，也許永遠不會見面的人。我用自己微薄的力量參與了這一過程，也獲得了更大的啟發。

Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's places.

不同于在這個星球上任何其他的動物，人類可以學習和理解未曾經歷過的東西。他們可以將心比心、設身處地的理解他人。

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

當然，這種能力，就像在我虛構的魔法世界里一樣，在道德上是中立的。一個人可能會利用這種能力去操縱控制，也有人選擇去了解同情。

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

而很多人選擇不去使用他們的想象力。他們選擇留在自己舒適的世界里，從來不愿花力氣去想想如果生在別處會怎樣。他們可以拒絕去聽別人的尖叫，看一眼囚禁的籠子；他們可以封閉自己的內心，只要痛苦不觸及個人，他們可以拒絕去了解。

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

我可能會受到誘惑，去嫉妒那樣生活的人。但我不認為他們做的噩夢會比我更少。選擇生活在狹窄的空間，可以導致不敢面對開闊的視野，給自己帶來恐懼感。我認為不愿展開想像的人會看到更多的怪獸，他們往往更感到更害怕。

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

更甚的是，那些選擇不去同情的人，可能會激活真正的怪獸。因為盡管自己沒有犯下罪惡，我們卻通過冷漠與之勾結。

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

我18歲開始從古典文學中汲取許多知識，其中之一當時并不完全理解，那就是希臘作家普魯塔克所說：我們內心獲得的，將改變外在的現實。

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped to change. We do not need magic to transform the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

那是一個驚人的論斷，在我們生活的每一天里被無數次證實。它指明我們與外部世界有無法脫離的聯系，我們以自身的存在接觸著他人的生命。

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of real trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

但是，哈佛大學的2008屆畢業生們，你們多少人有可能去觸及他人的生命？你們的智慧，你們努力工作的能力，以及你們所受到的教育，給予你們獨特的地位和責任。甚至你們的國籍也讓你們與眾不同，你們絕大部份人屬于這個世界上唯一的超級大國。你們表決的方式，你們生活的方式，你們抗議的方式，你們給政府帶來的壓力，具有超乎尋常的影響力。這是你們的特權，也是你們的責任。

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

如果你選擇利用自己的地位和影響，去為那些沒有發言權的人發出聲音；如果你選擇不僅與強者為伍，還會同情幫扶弱者；如果你會設身處地為不如你的人著想，那么你的存在，將不僅是你家人的驕傲，更是無數因為你的幫助而改變命運的成千上萬人的驕傲。我們不需要改變世界的魔法，我們自己的內心就有這種力量：那就是我們一直在夢想，讓這個世界變得更美好。

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

我的演講要接近尾聲了。對你們，我有最后一個希望，也是我21歲時就有的。畢業那天坐在我身邊的朋友現在是我終身的摯交，他們是我孩子的教父母，是在我遇到麻煩時愿意伸出援手，在我用他們的名字給哈利波特中的 “食死徒”起名而不會起訴我的朋友。我們在畢業典禮時坐在了一起，因為我們關系親密，擁有共同的永遠無法再來的經歷，當然，也因為假想要是我們中的任何人競選首相，那照片將是極為寶貴的關系證明。

I wish you all very good lives.

所以今天我可以給你們的，沒有比擁有知己更好的祝福了。明天，我希望即使你們不記得我說的任何一個字，你們還能記得哲學家塞內加的一句至理明言。我當年沒有順著事業的階梯向上攀爬，轉而與他在古典文學的殿堂相遇，他的古老智慧給了我人生的啟迪：

Thank you very much.

生活就像故事一樣：不在乎長短，而在于質量，這才是最重要的。

【人物簡介】

我祝愿你們都有美好的生活。

喬安妮·凱瑟琳·羅琳，生于英國的格溫特郡的Chipping Sodbury普通醫院。畢業于英國埃克塞特大學，學習法語和古典文學，獲文理學士學位。2000年，被母校授予榮譽文學博士學位。畢業后曾在英國曼徹斯特接受教學培訓。

非常感謝大家。

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