Back to 80: My Literary Life

After New Year's Eve, from the first to the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the New Year celebrations were still the same. I put on new clothes and went shopping, and went back to my grandpa's house to visit relatives, but I didn't see Song Tangtang.

The girl went to Yanjing with her parents to celebrate the New Year.

I officially started working on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, but there were only a few people coming to work from my workplace, and the New Year was not even over yet.

It’s like this every year, but watching the Lantern Festival Lantern Show on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month doesn’t count as the end of the New Year.

But the Writers Association Building in Taoranting Street, Xicheng, Yanjing, is very lively.

The reader voting phase of the 1984 short and medium novel selection event ended before the Chinese New Year, and now enters the next stage: members of the jury will review one by one and select the outstanding short and medium novels of this year based on the readers' voting results.

This is also a very arduous task. In order to announce the results of the awards in early March, except for director Palladium, the judges took sick leave. After the Spring Festival, everyone came to the Writers Association building and started working intensely.

The first is the short story awarding process. The judges analyze the candidates one by one and put forward their own opinions. The discussion is very lively and finally the first, second and third prizes of this year are selected. Of course, readers' votes are also a very important factor.

After five days of discussions and even arguments, 9 pieces including Shi Tiiesheng's "The Story of Queue Cutting", Tie Nian's "June's Topic" and Zou Zhian's "Oh, Little Stallion" won the Outstanding Short Story Award.

The jury decided to take a day off and continue the novella selection event tomorrow.

During the afternoon meal, Feng Mu and Zhang Guangnian, deputy directors of the jury, each held porcelain bowls and sat at the dining table, chatting while eating.

The two are relatively older, Feng Mu is 65 this year, and Zhang Guangnian is even older, already 73. The two have known each other for a long time. They knew each other during the "December 9th" student movement in the 1930s and have had a revolutionary friendship for decades.

In January of this year (1985), at the 4th Chinese Writers Association Congress, he was also elected as the Vice Chairman of the Writers Association.

"Old Feng, this year's selection of short stories is going relatively smoothly. I hope the selection of novellas will also go faster. At my age, I have been like this for several days in a row, which is a bit overwhelming." Zhang Guangnian said while eating.

After hearing this, Feng Mu smiled bitterly and said: "Guang Nian, you have to be mentally prepared this time. The previous selections for novellas have been more intense than the debates for short stories. What's more, there is a very special novel this year?"

"Special?" Zhang Guangnian was stunned for a moment, raised his head and looked at the other person, and suddenly thought of something: "You mean the article "Rural Teacher", right?"

"Yes. There were many readers' votes, as high as 300,000, which is the highest number of readers' votes in the past years. But a novel that doesn't seem serious will give you a headache? This Fang Minghua always poses problems to people."

"In the 1982 session, among the top 20 most voted novellas, his novels actually accounted for three of them! It was a headache, and in the end I had to discard two of them. This time there was only one, but it turned out to be science fiction, and the number of votes was another. Highest!"

Speaking of the latter part, Feng Mu couldn't help but shake his head.

Why do you have the highest number of votes?

This was a bit unexpected for him.

When the initial evaluation committee asked him to decide whether this science fiction novel was eligible to participate in the competition, he agreed with a stroke of his pen, which resulted in the current situation.

Do you feel a little regretful?

Zhang Guangnian laughed after hearing this: "Don't mention it, this Fang Minghua can really mess around. You know, he was also one of the judges at the second new poetry collection selection meeting in October last year, and he was so angry at Lao Ai that he couldn't get off the stage. "

Zhang Guangnian not only wrote novels, but was also a poet. He once wrote poems such as "Yellow River Cantata", "Flowers of May" and "Qu Yuan".

The "Yellow River Cantata" was composed by Xian Xinghai and became widely circulated in later generations.

Hearing what Zhang Guangnian said, Feng Mu said: "I have vaguely heard about this. Lao Ai is indeed a bit unreasonable. I don't like Mengyu poetry, but I can't pretend to be a public servant for personal gain, right?"

"Yes, the judges are all human beings, and they all have their own preferences. It is inevitable that they will bring these into the selection. It's normal."

Feng Mu was a little silent after hearing this. He picked up a small spoon, took a bite of vegetables, put it in his mouth, and ate slowly.

After a while, he lowered his voice and said, "Guang Nian, let's talk privately. What do you personally think of this science fiction novel?"

Zhang Guangnian had just picked up a steamed bun. After hearing this, he put the steamed bun in the bowl again and said, "To be honest, I haven't done much research on science fiction and I don't know much about it, but I like this one very much."

"Why?"

"Because I used to be a teacher."

Feng Mu knew this part of his history. It was still in the 1930s. In 1931, he entered the Chinese Department of Wuchang Zhonghua University (now Central China Normal University), and later dropped out to teach at Wuchang Anhui Middle School. He wrote the famous patriotic song "Flowers in May" 》.

"Our country is still relatively poor and has insufficient investment in education. In the central and western regions, there are many teachers like those described in novels. It can be said that they support the most basic education in our country! But how much does society care about and understand them? ? From this perspective, if this novel wins an award, it will undoubtedly be the best publicity for this group!"

Feng Mu nodded silently after hearing this.

He lowered his voice and said, "Guangnian, I mean the same thing, but you also know that there is a lot of prejudice against science fiction in society today, especially that person."

"That man is indeed a great scientist with outstanding achievements, but that doesn't mean everything he said is right! If everything is related to politics, it would be very naive!"

"If you had said this the year before last, you would have made a mistake." Feng Mu joked.

"But now it's not 1983, it's 1985."

They both laughed.

The next morning, the awards for outstanding novellas began.

According to the rules, the 17 judges each commented on the candidate novels, and based on full discussion, the final vote was taken.

Then, a total of 20 outstanding novellas from the past two years will be selected based on the judges' votes, which account for 70%, and the readers' votes, which account for 30%.

"The King of Chess" by Acheng, "The Greening Tree" by Zhang Xianliang, "Emerald" by Zhang Jie, and "The Divine Whip" by Feng Jicai.

In the past two years, these popular novels have been published one after another and discussed one by one. Although there are some disputes, everyone's comments are still relatively centralized and unified, either being selected or rejected.

The meeting lasted for five days. After repeated discussions and final voting, all the candidate novels were basically passed through. Finally, the top 20 novellas will be ranked according to their comprehensive scores.

In the afternoon, the meeting continued.

"Comrades, now we are discussing the last novel in this candidate list, "The Village Teacher", and please express your opinions."

After Feng Mu, who was the host of the meeting, finished speaking, unlike other novels where someone immediately spoke, there was a quiet and strange feeling.