If the novel has a very important position in literature, then the Mao Dun Literature Award, which was specially established to encourage the creation of long novels, can be called a bright pearl in the crown of Chinese literature.
The difficulty of winning the Mao Dun Literature Award is very high. The award has been awarded 10 times in the 40 years since its inception, and more than 40 novels have been awarded. Countless well-known writers have taken the Mao Dun Literature Award as their goal, but they have never been able to participate in this award for their lives. Even a heavyweight writer like Yu Hua has never won the Mao Dun Literature Award.
However, there is a contemporary writer who has won the Mao Dun Literature Prize twice, thus becoming the only writer to have won this award twice so far. Her name is Zhang Jie.
Zhang Jie is a native of Fushun, Liaoning Province, but was born in Beijing in 1937. Not long after Zhang Jie was born, her father died, and it was her mother who raised her. For this reason, Zhang Jie followed her mother's surname Zhang and had a very deep affection with her mother.
Many years later, Zhang Jie's mother died of illness, she fell seriously ill, and then spent more than a year writing a long essay "The Person Who Hurt Me the Most In the World Went", pouring out her thoughts about her mother in more than 100,000 words. In 2002, the essay was adapted into a film of the same name, starring Sichenkova and Huang Suying.
Zhang Ailing said: "To become famous, it is necessary to be early. "Many writers have emerged in the literary world in their teens and twenties. The "prodigy" We know as Liu Shaotang published his works at the age of 13, entered the second-year chinese textbook at the age of 16, joined the Chinese Writers Association at the age of 20 and became the youngest member of the Chinese Writers Association at that time... In contrast, Zhang Jie's age to embark on the path of literature is inevitably a little late. She only made her debut at the age of 39.
In 1978, Zhang Jie wrote her first short story, "A Child from the Forest". In the novel, Zhang Jie writes about a persecuted musician, Liang Qiming. She did not focus on the depiction of scars like other writers, but extended her brushstrokes to the humanity and human beauty of ordinary people, which was unique. Zhang Jie submitted the novel to the People's Literature magazine, which was rejected by the latter.
Zhang Jie was somewhat discouraged: "That was my first creation, of course, it was very childish, and the rejection of the manuscript showed that I did not have the talent of literary creation, so the manuscript was left behind, and I also extinguished my literary dream." If Zhang Jie suffered this blow and stopped engaging in literary creation, there would be one less excellent writer in the Chinese literary world. Fortunately, After Hearing about Zhang Jie's father's good friend and famous writer Luo Binji, he personally edited and reviewed the original manuscript and wrote to Zhang Jie, giving her encouragement and praise, and asking her to switch to Beijing Literature Magazine.
After seeing the manuscript, Fu Yawen , the editor of Beijing Literature (the wife of the famous poet Zhang Zhimin), admired it and published it almost verbatim in Beijing Literature, No. 7, 1978. Zhang Jie said gratefully: "I am always grateful to Teacher Fu Yawen, without her, I would definitely die writing heart, then there will be no one in the literary world named Zhang Jie, jumping around here." ”
After the publication of "The Child From the Forest", it won the National Outstanding Short Story Award that year.
Zhang Jie "fired a hit" and became a "dark horse" that broke into the literary world.
In the early 1980s, "scar literature" and "reflective literature" became popular and became the mainstream of the literary world. Zhang Jie, on the other hand, has set her sights on another area — the reform of the industrial economic system. After graduating from Chinese University, Zhang Jie worked in the First Machinery Industry Department for a period of time and was familiar with this field.
In 1980, Zhang Jie completed her first novel, Heavy Wings, which focused on the Ministry of Heavy Industry and the Shuguang Automobile Factory, which belonged to it, and waged a complex struggle around the reform of the industrial economic system. In 1981, Heavy Wings was published in the 4th and 5th issues of October magazine. In the same year, the People's Literature Publishing House published a single edition.
After the publication of "Heavy Wings", it caused a wide impact in society. In 1981, "Heavy Wings" participated in the first Mao Dun Literature Award and won the vote of all the judges, but for some reason it was eliminated and passed by the Mao Dun Literature Award. In 1985, when it came to the selection of the second Mao Dun Literature Award, everyone felt that the accusations against it were unfair, and still suggested that "Heavy Wings" should be awarded.
As a result, "Heavy Wings" finally won the second Mao Dun Literature Award. On September 23, 2019, "Heavy Wings" was selected into the "New China 70 Years and 70 Novels Collection".
In the late 1980s, Zhang Jie began writing her second novel, Wordless. This novel takes the life experience of female writer Wu Wei as the main line, tells the marriage story of several generations of women in the family, and reflects the great turmoil and great changes of the times and society with ordinary small things. Zhang Jie changed his manuscript several times, and there was no shortage of tears and restarts, and even compressed more than 1 million words to more than 800,000 words, and it took 12 years to announce the completion of the draft.
In 2002, "No Word" was published by Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House. In 2005, "No Word" won the 6th Mao Dun Literature Award.
Up to now, Zhang Jie has not only won the Mao Dun Literature Award twice, but also won the Excellent Novel Award, the National Excellent Novella Award, the National Excellent Short Story Award, the China National Book Award and other national literary awards, and achieved the impressive record of "Grand Slam".