【Editor's Note】Entering the new year of 2022, a number of well-known literary publications in China have launched new works, and the first issue of magazines such as People's Literature, Harvest, Shanghai Literature, Contemporary, Flower City, and October has been freshly baked or will be released soon.
Among them, there are not only Mo Yan, Ah Lai, Ye Zhaoyan, Xu Guixiang, etc. adhering to the layout of their respective writing styles, but also the narrative innovation and exploration of Ai Wei, Lu Nei, Sun Pin, Yi Zhou, Zhou Jianning, etc. A group of works dig deeper into the torrent of times and life, and outline the new spring pen cultivation pictures of the contemporary Chinese literary world.
Ye Zhaoyan's latest novel "The Gate of Yifeng" was first published in the first issue of "Harvest" in 2022.
Yifeng Gate is the main road from the north of Nanjing to the bank of the Yangtze River, and it will pass through this gate when going north, going out on expeditions, and winning battles. In the novel, that year, the reconstruction of Yifengmen was completed, and Yang Kui pulled a rickshaw to meet Yiju and Zhixin, but he did not think that in the near future, he would actually change from a rickshaw driver to a revolutionary, and the two women fell into a constant entanglement of cutting and chaos, and seized the development opportunity of the Shimonoseki area and became a business celebrity. Yang Kui and his brothers Shui Gen and Feng Yixiong were involved in this turbulent era in their own ways, from ignorant teenagers to weathered middle age, involved in revolution, business, and politics, they seemed to be competing with the times, but they paid a price for the times. Individuality and history staged a vigorous concerto in the city of Nanjing.
Sun Pin's "Magician by the Sea", Cao Kou's "Duck Town Past", Lu Dekun's "Biographer" three novellas, as well as Zhang Huiwen's "Judy" and Yi Zhou's "Waterfall Gatekeeper" two short stories, attract people's attention. In addition to the columns "Living Elsewhere" and "Bright Stars", Harvest launched a new column, "Dust and Sea Drops", and published the first issue of Nanjing University Professor Wang Binbin's work "Ruins and Dogs".
Alai's latest novel, The Quest for Gold, was first published in the first issue of People's Literature in 2022. In the novel, in the early 1940s, in the mountains of southwest China, large gold stolen from gold mines leads to the loss of one life after another. They are all cutscenes, but they are all unforgettable characters. The writer's profound novel kung fu is not only manifested in this, but also has a profound insight into the fortunes and situations of the soldiers and horses, which is a situation in which neither the greedy, the evil, the hopeful, nor the aspirant can treat each other well for a long time - the materialistic matter and the tragedy of human nature, in the meticulous interlocking diachronic and synchronic narrative of the penmanship, let the story of one exhausted person become a thrilling legend step by step, and the series of loud sighs. As for the lower part, it will enter the story of the new society where the big gold is lost and regained. The editor-in-chief commented that between the iron law of historical choice and the subtlety of the novel method, the work writes an infinite tension of aesthetics, "The writer we are familiar with has always been outstanding, and has always made us full of expectations." ”
The times are the people who publish the papers, we are the people who answer the papers, and the people are the people who read the papers. In the new year, "People's Literature" set up a new column entitled "People's Reading Papers", which selected the enthusiastic and earnest comments of friends from all over the country on the works published by this magazine.
Many of the works in this issue are also connected to the natural ecology. Xu Gang's non-fiction "Notes on Nature" is full of heaven and earth, always contains temperament, is full of knowledge, full of natural thoughts and the way of travelers; Shen Nian's non-fiction "Great Lakes News" is on the shore of the water, the world is in the countryside, and the poetry is in me; Laohan's essay "By the West Lake, there is such a small courtyard" restores the historical and cultural imprint left by the master and gives affectionate thinking; Liu Wenfei's essay "Nabokov and the Butterfly" explores hidden connections in the impulse to seek verification, and identifies the path leading to the ascension...
In the first issue of Shanghai Literature in 2022, a group of poems by Mo Yan were published, and the opening poem "The Bronze Statue of Neruda" originated from a spiritual dialogue between Mo Yan and the bronze statue of Neruda in the Beijing Normal School.
On a spring night, Mo Yan was alone in the hall facing the bronze statue of Neruda, and there was a spiritual dialogue between the poets. He wiped the bronze statue of Neruda with a "flannel cloth stained with water", remembering Neruda's poetry and life, and also recalling his visit to Chile and the visit to Neruda's former residence. In Mo Yan's meditation, Neruda is not a bronze statue, but a poet who still radiates passion, and he and Neruda's bronze statue strangely exchange identities in the poem...
Since 2018, Shanghai Literature has launched a "Short Story Special Edition" every January issue, pursuing the characteristics of elitism and literature in a short and concise length. This year's "Short Story Special Edition" launched Short Stories such as Shi Shuqing's "One Ear", "The Visitor" and Zhou Jieru's "A Trip", reflecting the writers' respective narrative skills and literary styles. Popular columns such as Xu Haofeng's "Accidents in 'Seventeen Years of Movies'", Chen Chong's "What Should I Say When It's My Turn", and Mian Mian's "Shadow of ECG" are still with readers.
In 2022, the first issue of "Contemporary" launched the military writer Xu Guixiang's long new work "The Sound of the Piano Flies Over the Wilderness", which tells the growth of the special boy class of the New Fourth Army Literary and Art Team in the fiery revolutionary years, and the sound of the piano and singing voice flying in the smoke of war, pinning on the children's clear and hot hearts, and also representing the hope of the nation. The new works continue the "heroic" core of works such as "The Sky of History", "The World Immediately", and "Hero Mountain", and infuse the legend of the revolutionary war with a flexible and youthful spirit.
The Beijing Winter Olympics is a major event at the beginning of 2022, and "Contemporary" launches Sun Jingyan's long documentary "Chinese Winter Olympics", which comprehensively records the preparation and construction of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the preparation process of Chinese athletes, and the vigorous development of ice and snow sports and Winter Olympic culture in China, showing the "China Plan" of the Winter Olympics provided by Beijing as a "double Olympic" city to the world.
The headline of the first issue of "October" in 2022 is Zhou Jianning's latest novella, "Tomorrow's Party". "2000" has completed its narrative in the literary narrative, and "Tomorrow's Party" looks back at the future imagination at the beginning of the century at this moment, an era that has grown up with people and then ended. "I", Wang Lu, Xiao Xiao, literary and artistic young people, growing up in the restlessness, excitement, expectation and frustration at the turn of the century, "fleeing", gathering and dispersing, "a wave always connects with the next wave", youth ideals and the spirit of the times, the flood waves.
"October" opens a new column focusing on ecological literature, "The Matter of the Earth", which will accommodate novels, essays, non-fiction, poetry and other different literary forms, the interaction and exchange of natural ecology with society and culture, the introduction of multidisciplinary horizons such as ecology and its surrounding aesthetics, history and culture, natural ethics, and political economy, and all "things on the earth".
In 2022, the first issue of "Flower City" launched the special topic of "Flower City Concern and To the 90s", which included new works by writers such as Ai Wei, Lu Nei, Xu Zechen, Wang Mozhi, Fan Wei, etc. The host He Ping interpreted it from the perspective of literary processing social experience and analyzed how novelists consciously handled the historical legacy in the process of personal spiritual growth.
Ai Wei's "Happiness Hostel" uses "small town past" to condense a market era of desire ecology; Lu Nei's "Physical Education Class" is a vocational school story of "youthful enthusiasm", returning to the starting point of youth in the 90s; Xu Zechen's "Song Riding Goose and His Woman" spreads the tone of "hometown" and expands the township picture and fireworks; Wang Mozhi's "Smoke of Tomorrow" cuts into the detailed history of the times from a musical perspective, writing the "vinyl culture" and the crowd behind it from the 90s to the present; Fan Wei's "Walking Book" cuts into the 90s with the personal fate of Peking University students. Describes the ups and downs and possibilities of an era.
Image source: Magazine Fang
Editor: Xu Yang
Editor-in-Charge: Liu Qing