On the evening of December 27, after jia zhangke, Li Jingze, Renke and Cheng Yongxin, four final judges discussed and voted on 10 anonymous novels, the first "Boundless Harvest App Double-blind Proposition Writing Competition" announced the final results at the China Museum of Contemporary Literature. The authorship of the 10 shortlisted works has also been revealed, of which 8 are the authors of "Kick Pavilion", and the other 2 are Yi Zhou, the professional author of the "Author Group" and Tang Keyang, the crossover author. What is surprising is that among the authors of "Kick pavilion" is the talk show actor Li Tian, and the two "top ten" finalists of "All Night" and "Space" are actually from the science fiction and suspense writer Ringo Sheng.
In the end, Lin Gesheng won the first prize of this competition with "All Night", Haichuan's "Southern Butterfly Road" and Yi Zhou's "Swinging Drum Tower - Playing Tip" won the second prize, Li Shi's "Transporter You Can't Buy It", Zhang Tongyuan's "Breaking the Valley", Wu Tingying's "Dangerous Building King Kong" won the third prize, Tang Keyang's "Swinging Drum Tower", Wang Fu's "Killing Snakes", Lin Gesheng's "Space", and Qi Xiaoyu's "The Last Supper" won the jury award.
On the evening of December 27, after jia zhangke, Li Jingze, Renke and Cheng Yongxin, four final judges discussed and voted on 10 anonymous novels, the first "Boundless Harvest App Double-blind Proposition Writing Competition" announced the final results at the China Museum of Contemporary Literature. Courtesy of the organizer
Literature has no boundaries, and there is a new life without boundaries
Boundless, it is intended to cross the traditional concept of "pure literature" and break the circle; double blindness, that is, the author and the judges all hide their names during the competition. In July 2021, the "Boundless Harvest App Double-Blind Proposition Writing Contest" was officially held, sponsored by Harvest Magazine and Harvest App, and jointly sponsored by Novel Review Magazine, Shanghai Himalaya Technology Co., Ltd. and Houlang Publishing Company.
The competition has set up an "author group" composed of professional authors and cross-border authors (Ban Yu, btr, Chai Chunya, Chunshu, Tanbao, Fu Han, Han Dong, Li Meng, Li Zhanyang, Ma Boyong, Ma Yimu, Mian Mian, Qiyannian, Qiu Huadong, Sun Rui, Tang Keyang, Tian Er, Wan Ma Caidan, Xiang Jing, Xiao he, Yang Lina, Yi Zhou, Yuan Ling, Zhang Guanren, Yan Lianke), calling on literature lovers from all over the world who write in Chinese to come to "kick the museum" and "compete on the same stage" with famous writers.
In the competition, all "kick pavilion" authors and "author groups" are required to create texts according to the organizer's propositions of the month and publish anonymously. After several rounds of competition, the competition received more than 2600 kicking works, after 3 rounds of 14 professional and cross-border judges, a total of 10 works of "Dangerous Building King Kong", "All Night", "Swing Drum Tower - Sharp", "Swing Drum Tower", "Snake Killing", "Breaking the Valley", "Southern Butterfly Road", "Transporter You Buy Or Not", "Space", "The Last Supper" 10 works entered the final selection. It was not until the final article came out that the identities of the 10 writers were revealed.
"We hope that all participating authors are willing to face uncertainty freely and face the mystery brought about by loss of control." We also hope that readers will be able to re-examine literature with an unbounded vision. Literature has no boundaries, and there is a new life without boundaries. Talking about the original intention of the competition, the planner of the competition and the person in charge of the harvest App walked around and told the surging news reporter, "We do not want the judges to be affected by the author's preconceptions about the reputation, nor do we want the author to dare to try new themes or writing methods because of his own fame, so he hides his name, which is for 'double blindness', at the same time, this also ensures the fairness of the award itself to the greatest extent, and tries to avoid the emergence of the 'unspoken rules' of the award." ”
Some works are enough to attract the attention of the literary community
At the final evaluation site, Jia Zhangke, Li Jingze, Renke, and Cheng Yongxin had a heated discussion on 10 anonymous novels. Jia Zhangke and Li Jingze's favorite is "End of Night", and Renke also ranks "End of Night" in the top three positions.
"I love 'The End of the Night.'" Jia Zhangke said that the novel presents the spiritual world within a Chinese family in a fantastic way, and its realistic direction is very accurate. He also mentioned that many of the 10 shortlisted works have fantasy or science fiction elements, but they are not endless imaginations, but have a close relationship with the real world. "When the problems of reality reach a certain level, or are difficult to understand, science fiction may provide a good perspective on how to explain reality."
As a professional literary critic, Li Jingze bluntly said that he did not like works that were too much like literary journals, and he looked forward to seeing works that made people feel impactful in such an "unbounded" double-blind proposition writing competition: "To be honest, these 10 works, the one that impressed me the most was this one "All Night". ”
Cheng Yongxin admitted that his first prize was not voted for "End of Night", but for "Swinging Drum Tower - Playing Sharp", but he believes that works such as "End of Night" are enough to arouse the attention and reflection of the literary community. "Some of these 10 works can be seen in our common literary journals, and some of them are completely different from our common novels. I was hesitant during the judging process, always wondering what kind of value criteria we should use to judge these words. We want them to be rich and varied, but at the end of the day you have to come up with a criterion. The creativity of "All Night" is very rich, it can be said that it is one after another, and I did not choose it in the end because I think the logic of many of the ideas in it needs to be enhanced and improved. ”
In the VCR that revealed the author's identity, Ringo said: "I have published and published some novels, some pure literature, some genre literature, and many scraps. I often can't help but use the structure and techniques of genre novels to build the field of the story. However, the connotation, charm and thinking of the novel are serious and in-depth, and they are purely literary. The reason why these novels were rejected may be one of the reasons for the limitations of my creative level, but what I feel more clearly is that boundary. It sits between genre literature and pure literary creation. But what are the boundaries? Can the meaning of the existence of boundaries only be regulated or can only be broken? Or can it be both standardized and broken? Finally, one day, I waited for the Boundless Contest of Harvest. ”
"All Night" and "Space" two "Top Ten" finalists are from the science fiction and suspense writer Ringo Sheng.
An important attempt in the field of "pure literature"
At the end of 2020, Li Shi published his first novella" "Waiting", which was regarded by the writer Sun Ganlu as an important publishing event of the year and also an important literary event. For "Transporter You Buy Or Not" to enter the "Top Ten" of the competition, Li Shi said that he was very happy, and did not expect, "I narcissistically feel that many people should know me, but I hope that everyone can know me through novels, or re-understand me, or know me more." So, I introduce, I am Li Shi, the author of the novel "Transporter You Can't Buy". ”
Li Tian's "Transporter You Buy Or Not" won the third prize
The second prize winner, Hai Chuan, who just started writing a novel this year, is also very happy that he has been shortlisted for the final. "I understand that The Boundaryless is dynamic and has no threshold because I myself like to play football and I think the Boundaryless is like playing wild ball, and on the rest days when both adults and children can participate. Ling Bo micro-steps, flowers on the soles of the feet, leather balls rolling on the lawn in different arcs, everyone enjoys it. ”
In the view of Tang Keyang, an architect and cross-border writer, literature and reality are not a relationship of mutual expression, but a relationship of mutual transformation. "Language does not have to fall into a kind of prison that it has set for itself, language can be transformed into some kind of space, space presents an image in time, and the image will eventually fall back into language." In this way, in the endless cycle, the meaning of what we call literature as a creative act can be reflected. Everything has existed since ancient times, everything is about to be repeated, and only the moment of recognition makes us feel sweet. ”
There is also a fun part of the final selection scene" "AI or people". On the eve of the award, Caiyun Xiaomeng, the AI of Caiyun Technology, together with 10 shortlisted authors, continued to write a text of about 500 words according to the beginning of the thousand-word opening of Ted Jiang's classic work "The Story of Your Life". The four judges went through 11 sequels on the spot and picked out the "AI sequel" in their minds. Subsequently, under the question of the critic Li Weichao, Li Jingze and Cheng Yongxin also exchanged views with Yuan Xingyuan, the developer of Caiyun Xiaomeng.
With the conclusion of the first "Boundless Harvest App Double-Blind Proposition Writing Competition", Meng Xiaoshu, a young writer and editor of "Contemporary", announced the official launch of the second "Boundless" Literary Action "Middle School Chinese Famous Rewriting", which will be divided into adult groups and student groups.
"No boundaries, even if there are no boundaries, we must break the boundaries." Walk around revealed that the successful holding of the first "Boundless Harvest App Double-blind Proposition Writing Competition" is an important attempt in the field of "pure literature" in the new era, and many invited authors have said that they will participate in the future "Boundless" writing competition again in the future or as an anonymous kick, while more literature lovers have seen a brave innovation in the "pure literature" circle in the live bullet screen and comment area, and have a clearer goal and direction for the future path of literary creation. "In the future, the methods of literary creation and the types of literary creation will be more diverse, and the achievements of literature and art will also be more fruitful and diverse."