Book author mystery 新书作者露真相

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

What has Robert Galbraith got to do with the author JK Rowling?

媒体已经揭开了新书作者之谜。此前，哈里波特的作者JK罗林以一位男性的化名出版了一部侦探小说。这部四月出版的新书名叫《杜鹃鸟在呼唤》，讲述了一名退役老兵变身为私人侦探的故事。以下是记者Martin Vennard 为 BBC 所作的报道：

It was something of a literary mystery. How was Robert Galbraith, a former military policeman, able to produce such an assured debut novel?

Extract from the book:

The face was crushed and swollen, one eye reduced to a pucker, the other showing as a sliver of dull white between distended lids. When the sequinned top she wore glittered in slight changes of light, it gave a disquieting impression of movement, as though she breathed again.

And now it turns out that Robert Galbraith is actually the nom de plume of none other than JK Rowling. The secret was only discovered when Britain's Sunday Times newspaper realised that Galbraith and Rowling shared the same agent and editor. Computer analysis showed they used similar phrases and styles.

It was also not the first time Rowling had hidden her gender, having chosen to be called JK rather than Joanne when she was first published.

Rowling confessed. In mitigation, she said she wanted to know how her book would be received without her name and that she had found it a liberating experience.

The book had sold fifteen hundred copies before Sunday, and now the mystery has been solved it is number one in the Amazon best seller list.