2 . Who Was E. B. White?

Today，most people remember E. B. White as the beloved children’s book author who gave us Charloue’s Web and Stuant Little，but did you know that most of his career was spent writing for famous magazines like The New Yorker?His lifelong dream of writing a children’s book about a mouse would take years to get published. A few years later，White would publish yet another children’s book inspired by a pig he had raised.

Who Was Johnny Cash?

Johnny Cash was famous as a country music legend and an icon of American songwriting. Due to his wide range of musical talent，Johnny Cash has been inducted into the Country，Rock and Roll，Rockabilly，and Gospel Halls of Fame. He also won 11 Grammys and 9 Country Music Association Awards.

Who Was Charles Schulz?

Charles Schulz loved drawing from the time he was a young child，and as he grew older，he turned this passion into a successful career. His early doodles(涂鸦)of his naughty dog and of a shy boy inspired two of his most familiar and beloved characters，Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

Who Was Levi Strauss?

As a young working-class German immigrant，Levi Strauss left his family’s dry goods business in New York City to journey out west for the Califoria Gold Rush. Only Levi wasn’t looking for gold—he wanted to provide the miners with strong clothes to wear. His solution?Blue jeans—which have become one of the most beloved and fashionable clothing items in the world.

3 . The music world lost a rock and roll superstar this week when guitarist Eddie Van Halen passed away. He was only 65 years old.

Eddie Van Halen was a founding member of the band Van Halen. He formed the group in 1974 with his brother Alex, who played the drums. Van Halen released (发行) its most popular single, the song Jump, in 1983. Jump rose to the top of Billboard Magazıne’s list of Hot 100 songs and stayed there for five weeks. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio lists Jump among its “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll”. Eddie Van Halen released at least 15 record albums with his band over the years, selling more than 80 million around the world. In 2007, Van Halen entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Van Halen brothers were born in the Netherlands. Their father was a professional musician. Their mother was from Indonesia. In the 1950s, some Netherlanders did not support the mixed-race (混种族) marriage, so the family moved to the United States. They settled in southern California. Eddie and Alex Van Halen had to learn English in their new land. Both brothers studied piano for years before getting interested in rock and roll.

As a child, Eddie was considered musically gifted. Eddie told a reporter he did not learn to read music. He said he would watch his teacher play and memorize his moves. He also said that he never took a class on playing the guitar, although he studied under Eric Clapton for a time. His father was among the first to recognize Eddie’s guitar skill. “You’ve got it, kid,” Eddie’s father said to him early on.

Eddie’s guitar playing was hard and fast. He was energetic while performing, often jumping like an acrobat (杂技演员) as he played. He was known for the way he tapped on the guitar strings with both hands. It influenced many musicians that followed.

Austrian author Peter Handke collected the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature while the 2018 award, which    1     (delay), went to Polish author Olga Tokarczuk.

Handke “has established himself as one of the most    2     (influence) writers in Europe after the Second World War”. His works are filled with a strong desire    3       (discover) and make his discoveries come to life by finding new literary expressions for them, the Swedish Academy said. He    4     (write) many novels in the past decades, like Short Letter, Long Farewell,    5    a young Austrian writer travels across the United States in search of his wife. This novel is    6     (general) considered as one of Handke's typical confusing    7     (work).

Tokarczuk became    8    winner of the 2018 award “for a narrative (叙事的) imagination that with encyclopedic (博学的) passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”. Her first work came out in 1993, and    9    was believed that her third novel Primevaland Other Times marked her major breakthrough. In 2018, she was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights,    10    (become) the first Polish writer to do so.

6 . As a teenager in the 1990s, Melissa Blake was interested in fashion. Unfortunately, fashion wasn’t much interested in her. Born disabled, Blake couldn’t find jeans or dresses in her size. Paging through fashion magazines, she didn’t see a single person who looked like her, and it hurt. “When you’re a teenager—disabled or not—you’re troubled by self-worth.”

Blake, 39, has spent her adult life trying to make up for that. She is a disability-rights activist and a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times. But she gained national attention in 2019 after clapping back at people, who said she should be banned from posting photos of herself because she’s too ugly. Over the next year, Blake posted a new selfie (自拍照) every day. “I feel like every time I post my selfie or share something about my life as a disabled woman, I’m fighting against this ableism (残障歧视),” Blake said.

Her fans went wild, calling Blake a goddess and a powerful woman. Among her fans is Mindy Scheier, the founder and CEO of Runway of Dreams. The company shows fashion for people with disabilities. Last fall, Scheier asked Blake to be a model in the biggest fashion event of the year.

Scheier said, “Putting Melissa in the event made people realize how important it is to expand who consumers are in the fashion industry, or who should be on stage, or what we’re really standing for in the word model.”

“Often, when we think of access for people with disabilities, we think of buildings and employment,” Blake says. “But it’s also important to have access to what’s fun and enjoyable. When disabled people are included, it sends a message that we deserve a seat at the table in all aspects of life.”

9 . Gurnah, growing up in Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

He is the first Black writer _________ the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993, and some observers saw his _________ as a long delayed corrective (矫正)after years of European and American Nobel laureates (获得者). In his 10 novels, Gurnah has often explored the _________ of exile(流放), identity and belonging. They _________“Memory of Departure” “Pilgrims Way” and “Dottie,” which all deal with the immigrant(移民)experience in Britain.

Gurnah’s first language is Swahili, but he _________ English as his literary language. He drew on the imagery and stories from the Quran, _________ from Arabic and Persian poetry, particularly “The Arabian Nights.” The news of Gumah’s Nobel _________ by fellow novelists and academics who have long argued that his _________ deserve a wider audience.

Gurnah was born in Zanzibar, which is now _________ of Tanzania, in 1948. Then, in 1964, he fled to England. __________ , poor, homesick, he began to write scraps(片段)in his diary, then __________ entries, then stories about other people. In his 20s, he started __________ fiction. Then he finished his first novel, “Memory of Departure,” about a young man who flees a failed uprising, at the same time he was writing his Ph. D. dissertation(论文). __________, he became a professor of English.

Though Gurnah hasn’t lived in Tanzania since he was a __________, his homeland always inspires him of his imagination. __________, he said “my homeland always asserts myself in my imagination, even when I deliberately try to set my stories elsewhere”.