Today marks 20 years since the death of Iris Chang, author of “The Rape of Nanking” that brought a knowledge of the Nanjing Massacre to a broad international audience after its publication in 1997. Today is marked here in Nanjing, Chang’s home of the USA and elsewhere.
今天是《南京大屠杀》一书作者张纯如逝世 20 周年纪念日。该书于 1997 年出版，让广大国际读者了解了南京大屠杀。今天是张纯如美国家乡南京和其他地方的纪念日。
The origins of The Rape of Nanking were sown when Chang was a child. Her parents would often talk about what happened in 1937 in a city called Nanjing on the other side of the Pacific and how the Yangtze River was dyed red with blood.
《南京大屠杀》的根源是在张还是个孩子的时候就播下了。她的父母经常谈论1937年太平洋彼岸的南京发生的事情，以及长江如何被鲜血染红。
Seeing black-and-white photos of the Nanjing Massacre for the first time in California in December, 1994, Chang felt extremely angry. She found that not a single book mentioned this period in history that to her should have never been forgotten. Chang noted that almost all Westerners were familiar with the crimes of Adolf Hitler, but no one knew about the Massacre carried out by the Japanese in China.
1994年12月，张在加州第一次看到南京大屠杀的黑白照片，感到非常愤怒。她发现没有一本书提到过这段对她来说永远不应该被遗忘的历史时期。张指出，几乎所有西方人都熟悉阿道夫·希特勒的罪行，但没有人知道日本人在中国进行的大屠杀。
Later, many in the USA would think it was incredible that a young girl spend several years writing a history book, since society expected her to make money and start a family. However, the then 25-year old Chang said, “I don’t care whether this book makes money or not. For me, I just want to let everyone in the world know what happened in Nanjing in 1937”.
后来，许多美国人认为一个年轻女孩花了几年时间写一本历史书是不可思议的，因为社会期望她赚钱并建立家庭。然而，当时25岁的张说，“我不在乎这本书是否赚钱，对我来说，我只想让全世界的人都知道1937年南京发生了什么”。
The impact of The Rape of Nanking is impossible to overstate. Not only did the book remain on the New York Times’ bestseller list for 10 weeks, almost all who read it would go on to recommend it to their friends, bringing it to an ever-expanding audience. It’s a phenomenon that continues to this day.
南京大屠杀的影响怎么强调都不为过。这本书不仅在《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜上停留了十个星期，而且几乎所有读过它的人都会继续向他们的朋友推荐它，从而将它带给了不断扩大的读者群。这种现象一直持续到今天。
Translated as the book was in to multiple languages and reprinted more than ten times in the following years, Chang found herself immediately in the media’s spotlight, coming to be greatly in demand as a speaker and interviewee, known for her tireless efforts at keeping the memory of the Nanjing Massacre alive at a global level.
随着这本书被翻译成多种语言并在接下来的几年里再版十多次，张发现自己立即成为媒体的聚光灯，作为演讲者和受访者而受到极大的欢迎，她因在全球范围内为纪念南京大屠杀而做出的不懈努力而闻名。
Chang’s blockbuster, published on the Massacre’s 60th anniversary, was motivated in part by her own grandparents’ recollections of their escape from the atrocities. Chang’s grandfather would go on to become Editor in Chief of China Daily in Taiwan.
张的这部大片在大屠杀 60 周年纪念日出版，部分原因是她自己的祖父母对逃离暴行的回忆。张的祖父后来成为台湾《中国日报》的主编。
Utilising the then-recently discovered diaries by both John Rabe and Minnie Vautrin chronicling the Massacre in detail and multiple other resources gathered during her visits from the USA to Nanjing, Chang had the energy, will and engaging writing style to make the subject matter come alive to a populist worldwide audience.
利用当时最近发现的约翰·拉贝和明妮·魏特琳详细记录大屠杀的日记以及她从美国访问南京期间收集的多种其他资源，张有精力、意志和引人入胜的写作风格，让世界范围内的民粹主义读者生动地了解这一主题。
Chang also served as an inspiration to many in Nanjing, so much so that upon her death, survivors of the Massacre held a service at the Memorial Hall at the same time as the funeral itself in Cupertino, California, on 12 November, 2004.
张也给南京的许多人带来了鼓舞，以至于她去世后，大屠杀的幸存者于2004年11月12日在加利福尼亚州库比蒂诺举行葬礼的同时在纪念馆举行了葬礼。
Still here in Nanjing, 1 month and 1 day from that day, the Memorial Hall will hold its annual service to mark what will be 87th anniversary of the commencement of the 6-week long terror that constituted the Nanjing Massacre. “History of the 20th Century” (Purnell & Sons, Ltd., 1968) describes the Massacre as “Nanking being sacked in a manner that recalled tales of Ghengis Khan and Tamburlaine [the Conqueror]”.
距该日还有 1 个月零 1 天，南京大屠杀纪念馆将举行一年一度的纪念活动，纪念南京大屠杀长达 6 周的恐怖事件开始 87 周年。 《20 世纪历史》（Purnell & Sons, Ltd.，1968）将大屠杀描述为“南京被洗劫的方式让人想起成吉思汗和帖木儿大帝（征服者）的故事”。
Many in Nanjing and around the world still regard the events of 13 December, 1937, in Nanjing as the true start of World War II.
南京和世界各地的许多人仍然将 1937 年 12 月 13 日发生在南京的事件视为第二次世界大战的真正开始。
Today, the Memorial Hall, which added a wing dedicated to Chang the year after her death, remains keen to acquire as much material evidencing the Massacre from around the world as possible, that which may even now still be lurking in the dust-covered collections of veterans’ descendants.
如今，纪念馆在她去世后的第二年增加了一个侧翼来纪念张，仍然热衷于从世界各地获取尽可能多的证明大屠杀的材料，这些材料甚至可能仍然潜伏在退伍军人后裔尘封的收藏中。
Chang herself, born in Princeton, New Jersey, to grow up in Illinois, had Huaiyin District of Huai’an City in our very own Jiangsu as her ancestral home where there remains the Iris Chang Memorial Hall (张纯如纪念馆). A writer, historian, human-rights activist and journalist, Chang worked as a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and the Associated Press in 1995. She held a master’s degree in writing from John Hopkins University.
张纯如出生于新泽西州普林斯顿，在伊利诺伊州长大，祖籍是江苏省淮安市淮阴区，那里还保留着张纯如纪念馆。张是一位作家、历史学家、人权活动家和记者，1995年担任《芝加哥论坛报》、《纽约时报》和美联社的自由撰稿人。她拥有约翰·霍普金斯大学写作硕士学位。
Constantly haunted by her discoveries and that surrounding them which came to her in the aftermath, often trembling in anger at the memory and the regular recipient of threatening letters and phone calls, Chang committed suicide on 9 November, 2004. While she left behind her husband and 2-year old son, on this special day her legacy remains, as it will do, for all time.
2004 年 11 月 9 日，张自杀了，她留下了丈夫和 2 岁的儿子，但在这个特殊的日子里，她的遗产永远留下来了。
