Interlocutors
Wang Meng (Honorary Chairman of the China Writers Association, who was awarded the national honorary title of "People's Artist")
Liang Xiaosheng (famous contemporary writer, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award)
Xiao Riding School (Online Literature Writer, won the Mao Dun Literary Newcomer Award and the Internet Literature Newcomer Award)
Liu Liangcheng (local literary writer, winner of lu xun literature award)
Feng Na (poet, winner of the National Ethnic Minority Literary Creation Horse Award)
Li Xiaoling (Half Moon Talk Reporter)
The new era and new journey are the historical orientation of contemporary Chinese literature and art. At the 2021 "Huadi Literature List" award ceremony, the award-winning writers gathered together to carry out rich and diverse dialogues on the relationship between literature and the times, the corrective function of reality, the function of literature in the Internet age, and the companionship and warmth of literature to the soul. Their focus has converged on a common topic: How do we write literature in the new era?
On November 23, 2021, the annual ceremony of the "Wind Bay Area Literature Seed Flower Land" 2021 Flower Land Literature List was held in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province
Literature still has the function of correcting reality
Liang Xiaosheng: Chinese literary creation needs realism, that is, to get as close to reality as possible and reflect it. Today, our literature still has the function of correcting reality. It can be said that our society needs literature too much to correct, and since it is corrected, realism and realistic themes may be more conducive to correction.
In today's China, there are still a number of writers, screenwriters and directors who firmly adhere to the theme of realism. There is a difference between the realism we talk about today and the realism of the past, we use black humor, dramatic style, symbolism and all other expressions into the work as much as possible, but we still speak out about reality.
Wang Meng: The cultural life and spiritual life of a country and region are active, our imagination, creativity, and love for life and society will all be expressed in literary creation. The novel "The Wind of Laughter" that I wrote reflects the new possibilities brought about by reform through the changes in the marital situation of a family, and the changes in vision and hearing brought about by reform and opening up have also led to some changes in life. Of course, any change, any development, will pay a price, but also will produce some uneasiness, making people pay more attention to the new issues raised by the times.
Li Xiaoling: There are many ways for writers to intervene or present this era, some are looking for reality in the depths of history, some are cold-eyed as bystanders of this era, and more writers are keeping up with the times and grasping the pulse of the times.
Ge Fei, the winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, once said that in today's era of increasingly entertaining literary writing, the writing ambitions of great writers such as Sima Qian to know right from wrong, to correct people's hearts, and to pass on customs are a necessary reminder for us. Because in today's social life, literature is still an important corrective force.
Riding School: Online literature is also literature, and it also plays a role in paying attention to reality and correcting the hearts of the world's people. The concept of "reality" needs to be expanded urgently, and writing about reality does not always mean writing about the struggle of the current workers and peasants, it can refer to the reality of human destiny and emotions. The joys and sorrows of our characters, their struggles and rises in difficult situations, are actually closely related to the reader's emotions. Even in the whimsical other-world structure, the characters of the story are demons, demons, dragons, and elves, taking off that layer of shell, essentially human, the story is still concerned with the human heart, still reflecting the writer's thinking, compassion and care for reality.
After fully opening the concept of reality, we found that in fact, online writers can pay attention to reality and lead social trends in the way they are best at. This is the power of words, but also the power of literature. Every one of us authors dreams of having this power, because it can change others, change the world, and that's what literature is all about.
The Riding School delivered an acceptance speech
Internet age literature is still here
Wang Meng: Literature is the art of language. If you look at it from the aspects of intuition, image, impact, attraction, etc., it is far less powerful than dance, music, drama, and art. Because language is a symbol, not an intuitive sound, color, or auditory, visual image. It is also a tool of thinking, so in a sense, literature is the art of thinking. Although literature may not be as relaxed and lively as the passages and short videos of online media, literature pushes you to think and judge. A good TV series has a far larger audience than literature, but even if the TV series "Dream of the Red Chamber" is successful and the director and actor are famous, isn't all this from Cao Xueqin's book?
Feng Na: Today, when new communication media are constantly emerging, the spread of poetry seems to have entered a wonderful new world like a kaleidoscope. In big cities, if you throw a coin into the POS machine, you will read poems written by several children in the mountains; when you change trains, you will see several lines of poetry flashing alternately on the LED screen; you can also read specially customized poems on the express box of "Double 11" shopping... Today, poetry seems to have become a medium of mind or emotion that is easy to package and deliver.
It also shows that poetry still has some of its most essential desires—love, communication, understanding, trust, and conscience. No matter how our language evolves over time, how our skills iterate, the stories of the depths of the human psyche are no fundamentally different from those of our ancestors thousands of years ago. It is safe to say that the emotional exchange and fusion that flows between words is unique to us humans, and even artificial intelligence is currently unattainable.
Riding School: Now, Tolstoy's prediction has become a reality. The development of the Internet allows everyone to speak up and become writers. Online novel writing is a common form of mass culture, rising with the development of the Internet and further flourishing with the popularity of the wireless Internet. Online writing is actually not easy, it requires superb talent and skill, using the Chinese characters created by our ancestors to mobilize and stir the reader's mood. Online novels assume the function of social pressure relief valves, online texts can resist the pain of reality and the pressure of life, and can allow the soul to come to the fantasy world in a short moment, which is the secret garden for readers to avoid the pain of reality.
Literature makes us innocent, rich, warm and noble
Liu Liangcheng: The novel "Bemba" is a childhood fact that I wrote. Although each of us has come from childhood, it is true that we no longer know our own childhood. What we made up accompanied us through our long childhood, only to grow up and no longer believe in fiction. Fortunately, there is literature, fictional literature that hands us what is not there. When literature tells us that there is fiction in this world, we begin to look at this real world differently. Literature may be what makes us so rich, warm, noble, so different from what others do not have.
"Bemba" is also a childhood epic I wrote to myself, one of the most "naïve" times in my writing history. Nature is the deepest, softest thing in our hearts that we protect. When I read the epic poem "Jianger", I was touched by the innocence revealed in the Mongolian epic, naïve and powerful, and now many people have lost this power.
Liang Xiaosheng: I have a wish to write children's books, because I directly crossed the age of reading children's books when I was reading, first, there were not so many children's books at that time, and second, in those difficult times of life, we did not have the courage to ask parents for a few cents to buy a children's book. We find ways to read books in villain bookstores, most of which are adaptations of adult books or translations of Western classics, such as Les Misérables and The Red and The Black. Therefore, I have always had an idea to combine children's books and novels, so that children's reading is also as we expect, not only immersed in the word "child", but to promote them to the height of literature to read children's books, to share the warmth and poetry that literature brings us. Just like sowing seeds in spring, let all participants and those who like literature feel the warmth and growth of summer.
Source: Half Moon Talk Internal Edition, No. 1, 2022
Edit: Yuri
Editor-in-charge: Qin Daixin
Proofreader: Du Xiaojin (intern) Wang Jiayi (intern)