Xiamen writer completed the creation of "Young Chen Jiageng"

Source: Taiwan Straits Network

According to a report by the Xiamen Evening News on 11 November, "I came to Xiamen in 2000 to settle down, and I previously served as a soldier in the Xiamen Garrison District for 4 years, witnessing the growth of the special zone, and Xiamen is my second hometown." Wu Erfen, vice chairman of the Xiamen Writers Association, said.

Over the years, Wu Erfen has participated in the editing of many local documents of Jimei and has a deep understanding of the history of Jimei literature. Before coming to Xiamen, Wu Erfen served as the dean of Guanzhishan Literature College and accumulated rich experience in creation and publishing. He said that he is very willing to give full play to his strengths and make a contribution to the construction of Jimei culture. His newly created "Young Chen Jiageng" has been completed and will be published after the Spring Festival next year.

origin

Planning and creating books that represent Jimei allow children to better learn traditional culture

Wu Erfen said that Jimei School Village is a famous school village in China, and it is necessary to better inherit Chen Jiageng's educational concept, carry it forward, and let children learn traditional culture -- the spirit of Jiageng and the culture of overseas Chinese, southern Fujian, and village.

At the beginning of 2019, Chen Zhongkun, general manager of Xiamen Waituling Zero Books, discussed with Wu Erfen that in order for children to better learn local history and culture, there must be a book with strong storytelling and representative of Jimei. The two hit it off and decided to create and publish a copy of "Young Chen Jiageng".

Wu Erfen began to collect and organize the data. He traveled through the archives and libraries of Xiamen City and Jimei District, and also "scavenged" more than 100 old books from the antique city flea market and various old book stalls, such as "JimeiZhi", which was published in Hong Kong in 1963 and edited by Chen Jiageng's son, and bought the English version of Xiamen published in 1897 for 10,000 yuan.

Although Chen Jiageng has memoirs and various versions of biographies, none of them deal with his juvenile life. "'Young Chen Jiageng' should be a semi-biographical juvenile book, which must be true and reliable, and must not mislead children." However, the collected texts about Chen Jiageng's childhood and adolescence did not add up to more than 200 words. This made Wu Erfen embarrassed, and there were also discrepancies in the text of different archival materials, such as how many schools Chen Jiageng donated to build, each book recorded differently, you need to find experts to verify, to determine which one of the content is more logical, more authoritative.

To this end, Wu Erfen consulted many local literary and historical experts to check the expression of the text. In addition, many old leaders and seniors of the Jimei Overseas Chinese Federation and the Alumni Association were interviewed and repeatedly verified.

creation

The truth of literature is the truth of details

The characters should be three-dimensional, plump, vivid and interesting

The truth of literature is the truth of details, and Wu Erfen believes that as long as it is true and reliable in four aspects, the authenticity of "Young Chen Jiageng" can be established.

The first is the truth of major events. For example, which year there is a typhoon in Jimei, which year there is a plague, which year there is a drought, these are recorded in the history books, and must be tightly sewn together and fit into the works.

The second is the truth of the relationship between the characters. How many times did Chen Jiageng's father come back to Jimei? What do you do every time you come back, and how long do you stay? How old are his younger siblings? What year was it born? The names and relationships of Chen Jiageng's other family members are the basic information of the creation, and you can't make mistakes.

The third is the authenticity of Jimei folk customs. Weddings and festivals, as part of southern Fujian, jimei not only have the same folk customs as other southern Fujian regions, but also have unique differences in folk beliefs and habits. Only by accurately grasping it can it be vivid and lively.

The fourth is the truth of the character's personality. Wu Erfen said that this one is the most important. Mr. Chen Jiageng's lifelong hard work, investment in running schools, loyalty and patriotism, "loyalty to justice, sincerity, diligence and thrift, innovation" these connotations of the "Jiageng spirit" are inseparable from his experience as a teenager. He firmly believed that Chen Jiageng witnessed the backwardness of the country when he was a child, so he worked hard to become strong; he must have felt the hardships of cultural poverty, so he was determined to run education. Another is that Chen Jiageng, as a business wizard, could not have performed without any performance when he was a child. In this way, Chen Jiageng in his youth must have suffered a lot, worked hard, and would do business. Such a teenager Chen Jiageng is three-dimensional, plump, but also vivid and interesting.

Wu Erfen said that the truth of these four aspects is like four nails, firmly nailed to the four corners of the text, so that "Young Chen Jiageng" has four cornerstones of authenticity. In line with the principle of "big things are not vain, small things are not informal", detail fiction is essential. "Fiction is for the sake of being more real", this is Wu Erfen's creative attitude.

Writer Profile

Wu Erfen has been passionate about paper-cutting since childhood, and began publishing poetry at the age of 19, and in recent years has created children's literature. He is currently the artistic director of Youth DreamWorks and the vice chairman of Xiamen Writers Association. He has published more than 20 novels such as "Carved Edition", "Room Nine", "Sisters", "New Shumen", as well as historical monographs, biographies, essay collections, novel collections, etc., and his works have been adapted into the TV series "Hakka Fengyun"; selected for "University Language", "University Language Course", "Contemporary Prose Works", "21st Century Annual Novel Selection"; won the Provincial Government Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Award, etc.; "Gu Wenchang", "Liao Junbo", "Sun Jiadong" were selected into the 2019 China Publishing Association 30 good books, won the "Laurel Children's Book" award, Listed in the reading list of primary and secondary school students of the Ministry of Education, "Gutian Seru" was selected as one hundred good books in 2020 by "Little Readers", "Porcelain Soul" was selected into Sohu's "Take a Book to the Future" book list and Jiangxi Province's 2021 summer vacation reading activity bibliography.

(Reporter Gong Xiaoguan)