Amy Krouse Rosenthal, a prolific children’s book author, memoirist and public speaker who, dying of cancer, found an extraordinarily large readership this month with a column in The New York Times titled “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” died on Monday at her home in Chicago. She was 51.
本月，因患癌症而不久于世的多产儿童读物作者、回忆录作者和演讲者艾米·克劳斯·罗森塔尔(Amy Krouse Rosenthal)，在《纽约时报》(The New York Times)上发表了一篇题为《你愿意嫁给我丈夫吗？》的专栏文章，取得了惊人的阅读量。周一，罗森塔尔在芝加哥家中去世，享年51岁。
The cause was ovarian cancer, which she learned she had in September 2015, her agent, Amy Rennert, said.
罗森塔尔的经纪人说她死于卵巢癌。她是在2015年9月得知自己患有这种疾病的。
Ms. Rosenthal’s bittersweet paean to her spouse of 26 years appeared as a Modern Love column in the online Style section of The Times on March 3 and in the Sunday newspaper section on March 5.
3月3日，罗森塔尔为陪伴她26年的丈夫书写的甜蜜而又苦涩的赞歌，作为“摩登情爱”专栏的一篇文章现身时报风尚版的网络版。
The column has drawn almost four and a half million readers online.
这篇文章的线上点阅量约为450万次。
“I want more time with Jason,” she wrote. “I want more time with my children. I want more time sipping martinis at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. But that is not going to happen. I probably have only a few days left being a person on this planet. So why I am doing this?
“我想要有更多时间，和贾森待在一起，”她写道。“我想要有更多时间，和我的孩子们待在一起。我想要有更多时间，在周四的夜晚去绿磨坊爵士俱乐部喝马丁尼。但这一切都不可能发生。我活在这个世界上的时间可能只剩下几天了。那我为什么要写这个呢？”
“I am wrapping this up on Valentine’s Day,” she continued, “and the most genuine, non-vase-oriented gift I can hope for is that the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins.”
“我是在情人节写完这篇文字的，而我希望得到的鲜花以外真正的礼物便是，一个对的人能读到它，找到贾森，开始另一段爱情故事。”
Her husband, interviewed by People magazine afterward, said, “When I read her words for the first time, I was shocked at the beauty, slightly surprised at the incredible prose given her condition and, of course, emotionally ripped apart.”
她丈夫后来接受《人物》(People)杂志采访时说，“当我第一次读到她的文字时，我被那种美惊呆了，鉴于她的状况，这篇不可思议的散文让我有些意外，当然，它还撕裂了我的心。”
Since 2005, Ms. Rosenthal has written 28 spirited children’s picture books, two quirky, poignant memoirs; delivered TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Talks and NPR commentaries; and produced short films and YouTube videos of what she called social experiments.
自从2005年以来，罗森塔尔写了28本生动活泼的儿童图画书，两本离奇而又能够触动心灵的回忆录；做过TED演讲，写过全国公共广播电台(NPR)评论文章；还制作过她称之为社会实验的短片和YouTube视频。
“I tend to believe whatever you decide to look for you will find, whatever you beckon will eventually beckon you,” she told one audience.
“我倾向于认为，你会找到你决心找寻的任何东西；此外，受你吸引的任何东西最终都会吸引住你，”她告诉一名听众。
She beckoned her readers and viewers. In a video called “17 Things I Made” — among them were her books and even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — she welcomed fans to join her at Millennium Park in Chicago, on August 8, 2008, at 8:08 p.m., to make an 18th thing. Hundreds showed up.
她吸引住了她的读者和观众。她制作了一则名为《出自我手的17样东西》(17 Things I Made)的视频——包括她写的书，乃至一个花生酱果冻三明治——在里面邀请粉丝于2008年8月8日晚上8点零8分，和她在芝加哥千禧公园(Millennium Park)一起制作第18样东西。当天有数百人赴约。
“Amy ran at life full speed and heart first,” Maria Modugno, her editor at Random House, said in a phone interview. “Her writing was who she was.”
“艾米在生活中全速奔跑、随心而动，”她在兰登书屋(Random House)的编辑玛丽亚·莫杜尼奥(Maria Modugno)接受电话采访时说。“她的文字就是她的本色。”
In The New York Times Book Review in 2009 Bruce Handy said of her work: “For all I know, she may suffer torment upon torment in front of a blank screen, but the results read as if they were a pleasure to write.” He added, “Her books radiate fun the way tulips radiate spring: they are elegant and spirit-lifting.”
2009年，布鲁斯·汉迪(Bruce Handy)在《纽约时报》书评版提及她的作品时说：“据我所知，她或许在空白的屏幕前经受过种种折磨，但作品读上去就好像作者写得津津有味一样。”他还表示，“她的书散发着无尽的乐趣，就如同郁金香散发着春的气息：它们既优雅又令人振奋。”

In her latest memoir, published as she was dying, she wrote: “Invariably, I will have to move on before I have had enough. My first word was ‘more.’ It may very well be my last.”
她在临终前出版的最新一本回忆录里写道：“不变的是，我不得不在拥有得足够多之前离开。我开口说的第一个词是‘more’（更多）。它极有可能成我说的最后一个词。”
But even before her diagnosis, she suggested that her energy and imagination were not boundless. Her favorite line from literature, she once said, was in Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town,” as spoken by the character Emily as she bids the world goodbye: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”
但即便是在病症被确诊前，她也提到过，她的能量和想象力不是无穷无尽的。她曾经表示，她最喜欢的来自文学作品的话，出自桑顿·怀尔德(Thornton Wilder)的剧作《我们的小镇》(Our Town)，是剧中人埃米莉(Emily)跟世界告别时说的：“人类之中有谁能做到在活着的时候意识到生命？”
When she reached 40, Ms. Rosenthal began calculating how many days she had left until she turned 80.
她从40岁便开始计算，离80岁还有几天。
“How many more times, then, do I get to look at a tree?” she asked. “Let’s just say it’s 12,395. Absolutely, that’s a lot, but it’s not infinite, and I’m thinking anything less than infinite is too small a number and not satisfactory. At the very least, I want to look at trees a million more times. Is that too much to ask?”
“我还能再多看一棵树多少次？”她问道。“就算12395次吧。这绝对很多了，但不是无穷的，而我认为，任何少于无穷的数字都太小了，不足以令人满意。我至少想再多看一棵树100万次。这要求很过分吗？”