《世界文学经典读本：我弥留之际（英汉双语版）》讲述的是本德仑一家送女主人艾迪归葬杰佛生镇的故事，而每个家庭成员既在叙事，又在进行着各自的心理拷问：安斯·本德仑在妻子的落葬之日便迎娶了新人；长子卡什在途中失去了一条腿；另两个儿子达尔、朱厄尔对母亲怀着深深的爱，一个自愿承担了纵火的恶名，另一个则在途中失去了心爱的马；女儿戴尔顺路到镇上购买堕胎药，被药店的伙计骗走了钱财；幼子瓦德曼是个白痴，甚至把母亲与刚捕到的一条鱼弄混了......艾迪归葬杰佛生镇的旅途成为了本德仑一家人的梦魇。书名取自荷马史诗《奥德赛》，作者有意将这部出版于1930的小说与古希腊的大英雄奥德修斯海上十年漂泊的苦难经历相比附，既构成一幅南北战争后美国南方贫穷、落后和传统的道德观念遭遇挑战的真实图景，又隐喻了现实人生的重重苦难。（Classic Readings of World Literature: As I Lay Dying describes that Bundren family sends Addie, the hostess of the family, to the burial location, a town called Jefferson. Each family member not only tells the story but also interrogates its own heart: Anse Bundren gets married on the day of his wife's burial; Karsh, the eldest son, loses his one leg on the way; Dahl and Jewell, another two sons, have great love for their mother, one bears the arson voluntarily and the other loses his beloved horse on the way; Dell, the daughter, goes to the town to buy aborticide by the way and all the money is cheated by the staff of the drugstore; Waldman, the youngest son, is an idiot and even confuses his mother with a fresh-caught fish......The way to the burial location of Addie, Jefferson Town, becomes the nightmare of Bundren family. The name of the book is from Homer's Epic Odyssey. The author intentionally compares this novel, published in 1930, with the painful experience on drifting on the sea for 10 years of the Greek hero Odysseus, which forms the real image of poverty, backwardness and traditional moral values being challenged of American south after the civil war and hints many hardships of the real life.）