Back to 80: My Literary Life

Fang Minghua hardly participated in this World Chinese Literature Award. He was neither a member of the reading class nor a final judge, but he was designated as the guest of honor.

In Bai Miao's words, "You are the founder of the Chinese Literature Award, so it is only natural that you should present an award."

So Fang Minghua had to go.

According to convention, the jury will first hold a closed-door meeting to review the shortlisted works, and then hold an award ceremony to announce the results.

Now the meeting has ended and the results have come out, but they are in a strictly confidential stage, so Fang Minghua doesn't know either.

Of course, if Fang Minghua wants to ask the organizer Bai Miao, he will definitely know the results, but he doesn't think it's necessary.

It's also interesting to guess.

Who will win the best novel this time, which he cares most about?

According to the list of nominees that have been announced: Wang Anyi's "Song of Everlasting Regret", Zhang Ping's "Choice", Han Shaogong's "Maqiao Dictionary", Japanese writer Watanabe Jun'ichi's "Paradise Lost", and Russian writer Yevtushenko's "Don't Die Before You Die".

Among them, the most popular ones are "Song of Everlasting Regret" and "Paradise Lost".

"Song of Everlasting Regret" takes the legendary life of the protagonist Wang Qiyao as the main content of the novel, which is "Splendid Smoke and Dust", and connects the vicissitudes of the times with the twists and turns of personal fate.

In this novel, the author Wang Anyi gradually weakened the influence of the traditional realistic literary view, used a variety of metaphors, and the technique of film montage, and the style is cold, humorous, delicate and moving.

Fang Minghua is also optimistic about this book. In history, it won the fifth Mao Dun Literature Award! Of course, it has not been announced yet.

The other is "Paradise Lost", which tells the story of a middle-aged man and woman who both died because of an extramarital affair.

The novel draws on the creative ideas and writing skills of the Heian period literature represented by Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji" in the 11th century. Junichi Watanabe cleverly incorporates the "elegance" and "mono no aware" of the Heian period into his works, producing an artistic effect of delicate description, sincere feelings and exciting.

This book caused a great sensation in the Japanese literary world, and even the "Paradise Lost" phenomenon appeared, and it also had a certain influence in China.

In 1997, it also won the Japanese New Word and Popular Slogan Award of the Year.

In fact, Fang Minghua thinks that "Don't Die Before You Die" is quite good. This bestseller by the famous Russian poet Yevtushenko caused a sensation in Russia, Europe and the United States in the 1990s.

The unrestrained new realism style makes it difficult to define its subject matter and genre. Some comments say that this is a political news documentary work, which reveals the truth of the political turmoil before and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union under the cover of many interesting stories, involving the personal situation of the Soviet president and marshals

However, given the sensitive subject matter, it is estimated that the possibility of winning is not great.

Fang Minghua arrived in Lanzhou by train on May 16 and stayed in Lanzhou Hotel.

Lanzhou Hotel is very famous in Lanzhou City. The overall building is in the style of the former Soviet Union, solemn and generous. I am used to seeing Western or modern-style hotels everywhere in China. Suddenly seeing this kind of building with the color of the former Soviet Union's heavy industry, I have a strong sense of nostalgia.

The members of the literary award jury and the 25 writers of the shortlisted works all live here, and Fang Minghua met many acquaintances.

In fact, this kind of ceremony also provides everyone with a rare opportunity to meet and communicate together. Everyone can talk about their recent situation and talk about literature.

During dinner, Fang Minghua and Wang Anyi sat together. He said: "Sister Anyi, many people are optimistic about your "Song of Everlasting Regret""

"Yes, I am optimistic about your book too." The speaker was Han Shaogong, who was eating a piece of chili.

As expected, people from Hunan Province love spicy food.

Han Shaogong's "Maqiao Dictionary" shortlisted this time is also one of his representative works, but it caused controversy after publication. A group of people including Zhang Yiwu, a professor of the Chinese Department of Yenching University, believed that "Maqiao Dictionary" was plagiarized from "The Dictionary of the Khazars" written by Yugoslav writer Milorad Pavic.

"The Dictionary of the Khazars" is a famous novel published in 1984, recording the history of a dynasty that once existed and then declined. The content of this novel is complicated, with ancient and modern times, fantasy and realization, dreams and non-dreams intertwined. The book describes the mystery of the sudden disappearance of the Khazars in the Middle Ages in a confusing way, with time and space going backwards and people and ghosts changing. It is recognized as a strange book.

But it was later confirmed that the Maqiao Dictionary was just a reference to the dictionary-style writing of the Dictionary of the Khazars, and that dictionary-style writing existed long before Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars.

The imitation of the structure of literary works is not only not plagiarism, but a tribute.

But this incident also cast a shadow on Han Shaogong himself and the publication of this book. Han Shaogong is already satisfied with being shortlisted for the World Chinese Best Novel Award.

As for winning the award, he does not expect it.

Although both friends were optimistic about their books, Wang Anyi was still relatively sober. She said: "Not necessarily. Which of the five shortlisted books is not weak? Especially Jun'ichi Watanabe's Paradise Lost has a great influence in Japan and our country.

Jun'ichi Watanabe also came to Lanzhou, but he was chatting happily with Lei Da and others through the translator at another table.

Zhang Ping, the author of the shortlisted work Choice, also sat at this table.

Zhang Ping is the same age as Wang Anyi, but compared with Wang Anyi and Han Shaogong, who were famous writers in the 1980s, Zhang Ping is much inferior in the literary world.

His novels mainly reflect the sharp contradictions in the realities of factories, cities and officialdom, such as "Blood Soul", "Skynet" and "Choice".

This type of novel suddenly emerged in the past few years with Fang Minghua's "In the Name of the People", which was crowned as a shock wave of realism and was taken seriously by people.

And Zhang Ping's "Choice" was written against this background. It is based on the difficulties of large and medium-sized enterprises in real life and describes the fierce struggle of a group of leading cadres against corruption and the masses against corruption.

Ordinary readers like to read this kind of novel very much, but many editors and critics in the literary world are not very optimistic about it. It was beyond his expectation that he could be shortlisted for the best.

There is another reason: this book was adapted into a TV series of the same name last year, and the response was very good. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons for the shortlist.

So when someone was talking about it, he just ate the food silently.

Fang Minghua saw all this.

He and Zhang Ping did not have much intersection. They only met once, that is, at the "Realistic Literature Works Conference" held by "Zhongshan" magazine in Nanjing in 1994.

It was at that meeting that Fang Minghua proposed the term "new realist novel". Later, works such as "In the Name of the People", "Dachang", "Director of the Petition Office", "No Hometown in the Snow", "Absolute Power", "God is Above", etc. were published one after another, including Zhang Ping's "Choice".

To some extent, Fang Minghua is half the owner of this Chinese Literature Award Competition. After all, he founded this competition, so when he saw that Zhang Ping was somewhat neglected, he took the initiative to chat with him.