○  莫言获奖演讲英文版  ○

mother. hearing her voice was like giving my heart a new lease on life. but not hearing her threw me into a panic. i'd go looking for her in the side building and in the mill. one day, after searching everywhere and not finding her, i sat down in the yard and cried like a baby. that is how she found me when she walked into the yard carrying a bundle of firewood on her back. she was very unhappy with me, but i could not tell her what i was afraid of. she knew anyway. "son," she said, "don't worry, there may be no joy in my life, but i won't leave you till the god of the underworld calls me."

i was born ugly. villagers often laughed in my face, and school bullies sometimes beat me up because of it. i'd run home crying, where my mother would say, "you're not ugly, son. you've got a nose and two eyes, and there's nothing wrong with your arms and legs, so how could you be ugly? if you have a good heart and always do the right thing, what is considered ugly becomes beautiful." later on, when i moved to the city, there were educated people who laughed at me behind my back, some even to my face; but when i recalled what mother had said, i just calmly offered my apologies.

my illiterate mother held people who could read in high regard. we were so poor we often did not know where our next meal was coming from, yet she never denied my request to buy a book or something to write with. by nature hard working, she had no use for lazy children, yet i could skip my chores as long as i had my nose in a book.

a storyteller once came to the marketplace, and i sneaked off to listen to him. she was unhappy with me for forgetting my chores. but that night, while she was stitching padded clothes for us under the weak light of a kerosene lamp, i couldn't keep from retelling stories i'd heard that day. she listened impatiently at first, since in her eyes professional storytellers were smooth-talking men in a dubious profession. nothing good ev

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