也许你们会以为，我之所以选择第二个主题——想象力的重要性，是因为它帮助我重建生活，但这并不是全部的原因。
我固然到死也会捍卫睡前故事的价值，但我对想象力的理解有了更广泛的含义。
想象力是人类独有的预见未知的能力，它还是所有发明创造的源泉。
它可能是最具变革性和启示性的力量，能让我们切身感受到我们未曾经历的他人的体验。
其中一个对我影响最大的经历发生在写《哈里波特》之前，为我后来完成著作提供了很多想法。
这些想法成形于我早期的工作经历。
在二十几岁的时候，我在位于伦敦的国际特赦组织总部的研究部门工作，以获得付房租的钱，而午餐的时候我就溜掉去写小说。
那时我坐在小小的办公室里读着来自极权统治地区的来信。他们急切的写下潦草的文字，将信偷偷寄出来，冒着坐牢的风险告诉外界自己的遭遇。
我看到那些无迹可寻的人的照片，是他们的绝望的亲人和朋友寄来的。
我读着被严刑拷打的受害人的证词，看着记录他们的惨状的照片。我打开手写的目击证词，里面描述了绑架和强奸犯的审判和处决。
我的很多同事以前都是政治犯。他们被迫离开家庭或流亡国外，因为他们莽撞地评判了他们的政府。
我们办公室的访客有些是来提供信息的，也有人前来了解他们被迫放弃的同伴的情况。
我永远也无法忘记一个非洲酷刑的受害者。一个当时还没我大的年轻男子，因为在家乡的遭遇有些精神失常。
在摄影机前讲述自己遭受的痛苦时，他抑制不住地战栗着。
他比我高一英尺，看上去却像孩子一样脆弱无助。
随后，在我按照吩咐护送他去地铁的路上，这个被酷刑摧毁的男人却优雅有礼地拉着我的手，祝我未来幸福快乐。
在我有生之年，我都会记得在自己走过一条空旷走廊时从身后一扇紧闭的门内传出的尖叫。这声音包含着强烈的痛苦和恐惧，我以后再没听过那样的声音。
门打开了，一个工作人员探出头，告诉我赶快给坐在她身边的青年男子拿一杯热饮。
她刚刚告诉那位年轻人，由于他本人公开反对自己国家政权，他的母亲已被抓走并处决了。
Early Working Experiences
By J.K. Rowling
Now 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.
Though I personally 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 empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
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 at the African research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.
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.
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 speak against their governments.
Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.
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 back 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.
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 had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
整理：2024年5月18日于大理亚奢酒店
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