Individual writing of a generation of rural youth

Yang Guangzu

True writing is closely related to one's own life and the times in which one lives. Therefore, literary creation has both individual differences and intergenerational changes. Mencius said that it is reasonable to know people and discuss the world. Li Yaqiang belongs to the post-80s writers, and is a generation of people who grew up in the countryside of Longzhong, and his prose creation naturally has its own distinctive characteristics.

It can be said that the history of youth and growth of post-80s writers is synchronized with the rapid development of China's modernization and urbanization. The trend of the times is completely different from previous generations, and the flow of society is accelerating, making their writing, most of them like to write their own life experience, and the personalized narrative is more obvious. Most of Li Yaqiang's prose is autobiographical, or a kind of non-fiction writing. Inside the text, there is a kind of depressed romantic atmosphere.

Li Yaqiang was born in a remote small mountain village, his grandfather was a reader, the family has a collection of books, he liked to read since he was a child, it can be said that this planted the seeds of literature in his heart. In middle school, he participated in the National Essay Contest for Middle School Students and won awards, and began to publish articles. After graduating from college, I left Baotou, "The footprints of my life, starting from the Yellow River, eventually followed the Yellow River and stayed in Baotou on the edge of the Yellow River." "This became his second home, and his life and literature sprouted and grew together. Life, which made him have a lot to say, he didn't need fiction at all. His writings, gradually attracting the attention of readers, have been selected into many local literary journals, and various annual selections, and won the highest local literary award.

Li Yaqiang's prose, from the initial "Winter of Zhao Jiaying", "Three Chapters of Hetao", "City Notes", to "Night" and "The Dark Night Will Eventually Come", has a process of continuous maturity. But the inner spiritual temperament is consistent. His prose is basically the path of traditional literature, but it is also influenced by the times, and you can see the changes in the West, the fission of society, and the pain, struggle, and tears between them. City and countryside, resistance and integration, constitute the basic essence of his works, through some seemingly personal narratives, writing is actually the collective memory of a generation of rural youth in the social background, fully embodying the subjectivity of the narrative, approaching the essence and reality of life. This leads to a more obvious personal character: a restrained and poetic narrative style.

With his rich and thick life accumulation, Li Yaqiang focuses his pen and ink on his childhood, adolescence and even the present, the narrative of the scene, the concise text, the literature of real life, and the silent writing polishes himself and what happens around him. This kind of writing, in fact, is also a very test for the writer, his truth, his soul, dare to face himself, dare not write his own embarrassment and embarrassment. Moreover, this kind of writing is also difficult to sustain. With the change of their living conditions and social status, the original strong desire to pour out will decline, or even dry up.

In the city, writing about the village, and not the "real" village (more of a remodeling of his memory), he is like a wandering soul in the middle of the night, constantly moving between the village and the city, surviving in the gap between the two and merging, and trying to find a breakthrough. It can be said that his writing is sticky and coarse. When a prose writer, from youth writing, really to middle-aged writing, is the need to have a deep cultural education, otherwise, it is difficult to go on.

When there was no more car passing on the road in the early hours of the morning, when the leaves outside the window fell quietly in the dark night, but they were thrown loudly, he still insisted on writing in the dim light. He can realize the bottleneck of his prose creation and work hard to break through. The biggest feature of an excellent writer is that he can be clear about his creative status, and he can constantly break through and improve unceasingly.

("My Other Way", by Li Yaqiang, published by Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House)