In 2019, the "Overseas Chinese Novel Annual Exhibition" was launched, and Xia Shang, a novelist in the United States, cooperated with the publishing house to plan for the three years from 2019 to 2021 to gather the talents, backbones and cutting-edge overseas Chinese creative forces to launch a new annual exhibition on paper. Xia Shang explained that the "standard of participating novels" is "the works of overseas Chinese writers with potential and strength", so the "Annual Exhibition" highlights "openness and inclusiveness", taking into account the geographical breadth and literary thickness. In the first quarter of 2019, 16 writers participated in the exhibition: Bai Xianyong, Chen He, Chen Qian, Chen Yonghe, Erxiang, Huang Jinshu, Fan Qian, Li Fengqun, Ling Lan, Liu Ying, Li Yinan, Li Zishu, Wang Qian, Xia Shang, Zhang Huiwen, Zhang Ling; in the second quarter of 2020, 18 writers participated: Chen Jizhou, Chen Ruilin, Hei Bao, He Sockpi, Ling Shan, Lu Weiqing, Nanqiao, Ni Zhange, Shen Qiaosheng, Shi Wei, Shanyan, Shu Yiran, Tang Jian, Tang Ying, Xia Zhou, Yan Geling, Yuan Jinmei, Zeng Xiaowen The third quarter of 2021 has been prepared, and there are still 18 writers participating in the exhibition: Glacier, Chunshu, Chai Chunya, Hongying, Gu Yan, Roman Lan, Lu Xinhua, Qian Jiannan, Song Mingwei, Su Ying, Xie Lingjie, Xiao Tie, Xue Yifeng, Ying Fan, Yan Ge, Yu Zemin, Zhu Dake, Zhao Yan.
Overseas Chinese Novel Annual Exhibition 2019, Editor-in-Chief: Xia Shang, Edition: East China Normal University Press, June 2019
From the above list, it can be seen that the 52 exhibitors basically cover the current appearance of overseas Chinese novelists. The "Annual Exhibition" is not only an important data reserve for literary research, but also a stage witness to the development of literature. Overseas Chinese literary creators and researchers once presuppose cultural barriers as an inevitable obstacle to integration from the perspective of cultural dissemination, but nowadays their works have less repeatedly strengthened cultural differences, paying more attention to considering the matching degree of individual ideals and actions, and facing specific "problems" that come to them, they naturally deduce the reasons from people rather than presuppose different from countries.
Before opening the Overseas Chinese Novels Annual Exhibition 2020, let's do some recaps. The first season of participating novels has a degree of generosity and tolerance, showing a new "landing" attitude and "rooted" ability, and the Chinese community's feelings for other countries are gradually stripped from the cognitive habits of "suspension", "diaphragm", "marginal people" and "superfluous people", focusing on the individual's lively current experience.
The second series of eighteen novels further solves how people get along with themselves, the writer from marriage and love, career choice, study, social and other different directions, through the washing of difficult problems, in the real emotions of enjoyment and boredom, discern the integration and repulsion of the inside and outside of the self. The description and resolution of various urgent or intractable situations are flogging a series of cunning, hostility, and evil thoughts, and finally contributing to the kneading and reshaping of the outlook on life and the reawakening of human goodness. I believe that this "annual exhibition" has achieved a progressive focus on the three cores of human-human emotion-love, so I planned six entrances to the exhibition: secrets, private thoughts, suffocation, dilemma, past events, and good intentions, prompting some possibilities of understanding and perceived value consensus.
Overseas Chinese Novel Annual Exhibition 2020, Editor-in-Chief: Xia Shang, Edition: East China Normal University Press, February 2020
1. Secret: Waiting for the opportunity to climb up to the bottom of the heart and take a bite
"Daughters of the Sun" and "Plastic Age" uncover the juvenile secrets of the "post-80s" young group, how do all the conspiracies escape condemnation? No matter how much it is whitewashed, no matter how it is whitewashed, it cannot exorcise Li li's demons. The only light she could feel was the evil love that lurked in her heart and rippled from time to time. If Chen Jizhou continues the spectacle narrative of blaming trauma on the unruly fate, then the novel will slip into a solidified model, and he will prevent the reader from continuing to spy on Lili's childhood experiences, and instead start to explore the evils of human beings under the cover of love. That grand carnival, the implementation of a release of memories and fantasies. Carnival absorbs all the malice and evil deeds that are disguised by love but never revealed. "Everyone has a way of their own", artificially shielding the secret, waiting for the opportunity to climb up to the bottom of the heart and bite back.
In 1996, "I" mixed with Wang Yang, Monkey, Ah Si, and Zhang Jing; more than 30 years later, "I" witnessed Wang Yang, the demon king of the Mixed World, who was killed in a tragic death when he exploded the Guangzhi Mansion. "I" also bumped into Zhao Yu, who was once inseparable from "I", and actually hid the gender misplaced privacy. In the truth and falsehood, "I" am at a loss, but the true and false will eventually be crushed into powder and become the material of synthetic life. Similarly dealing with secrecy, Chen Jizhou chooses an ethical perspective, and He Shupi uses the youth horizon, and they all attach importance to the metaphorical ambiguity generated by the composite nature of imagery. The significance of "Plastic Age" is that it can completely dissolve the truth of all things, just like cotton and real cotton, but it has nothing to do with the essence of cotton.
2. Private thoughts: disputes of interest between close relatives
"One Hundred Percent pain" is a test of family affection, in the process of the mother's hospitalization due to illness until her death, the multiple masks of blood relatives are easily torn apart, and the family affection that was thought to be unbreakable has long been eaten into a honeycomb by selfish interests. The pain of "I" is, on the one hand, the sadness of the death of the mother, and on the other hand, the sadness of the sister's separation. Money manipulation maintains a spectacle of family affection. The reason why "I" can still be co-opted by everyone in the extended family is because of the emotional displacement of continuous material efforts. "100% pain", holding back the rebound of 100% love, "I" love "my" relatives, so I will be deeply depressed about the collapse of humanity. When they become adults, the brothers and sisters who have grown up together will eventually have to run for their own things, and no one can get rid of selfish interests. Black children have a strong control over language, and readers can always identify some correspondence with their real lives from trivial details. The conflict of interests between close relatives, the confrontation between filial piety and self-interest, are just like the reproduction of the real encounters of ordinary people. Explaining the crisis of the novel, Steiner emphasizes that "without the training of the documentary genre, without the choice and reorganization of the diverse subjects of life according to their own artistic and critical purposes, the novelist becomes a witness to anxiety." He is not the subject of observation, but the servant of observation. "When fiction has produced a certain reading inertia, solid restoration of everyday works, but scarce, black children stitch documentary and fiction, and erase the boundaries of the two, the dark psychology of the rotational and introverted portrayal, to establish text recognition."
"No Escape" affirms the rebirth of "Yali" into "Caryn", but the shadow that envelops her is also the same. Feng Tianyong's betrayal, Wu Jiaxiong's injury, and endless gossip have become taboos that "Yali" cannot escape and "Kailin" deliberately avoids. Just when she thought she had the ability to shield her past experiences, Nightmare climbed to the rescue again, and she might be able to squeeze out a path with a fight, so Karene set up a killing bureau with a knife.
3. Suffocation: The psychological imbalance of the middle class
"Parallel World", "Those Lights That Illuminate Our Worldliness", "To the Other Side of the Mountain", and "Spirits" four novels continue and expand the "new immigrant literature" to the "accompanying reading" model of writing, the creators insight into the psychological imbalance of the middle class, while the text also frankly expresses that pleasing is not the right way to gain respect and love. From the perspective of the big picture, mother and daughter and father and daughter are two groups parallel; from the small point of view, the indissoluble gulf between the young warbler, the mother, the daughter, and the old king are actually four groups of parallel. The South Bridge arranges for the interloper, Adam, to instantaneously intervene in the parallel world, stirring up the chaos of the edges, but its death makes each area return to the clear boundary. Above the individual world, there are more vast parallel worlds, controlled by rules (the "visible set") and unspoken rules (the "invisible set"). Ling Shan traces the dynamic process of secularization of intellectual women in a retrospective way. In "Those Lights That Illuminate Our Worldly", Su Xiu's personality is filled with contradictions: he is afraid of the world and slides into the world. American housewives are not a group that needs to be sympathized with or ridiculed, and the secular nature of the novel's criticism is still defined by traditional Chinese ideas. Since Su Xiu did not get the safety and recognition she expected, she gradually lost control and fell into the paradigm of existence from childbirth to parenting.
Shu Yiran's "To the Other Side of the Mountain" hides a ubiquitous "Caroline". Hongge did not expect that Caroline would be able to cover up "traces" of her new home after her death. She had no doubt that she met Raymond at a migrant restaurant, and then fell in love and married, all of which were the prince's rescue of Cinderella's destiny. But when she moved into Raymond's house, she realized that the depth of Caroline's soul was unfathomable. She repeatedly pampers hard-won happiness with trepidation, but she is both an actress and a stand-in.
The beast-trapped mentality indulges in a "strong drink". Tetsuko, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, seized a 12-day literary festival as a psychological adjustment. An encounter with Will on the plane is just the right place to rescue her. Tetsuko is particularly concerned with her words and deeds, revealing her desire to be watched. Drinking "Long Island Iced Tea", facing Chris, who is new to her knowledge, she shakes her drunkenness and vents out of control the death of youth and the loss of middle age. Tang Ying has created a series of wonderful female figures, and I think the uniqueness is to reveal the "degree" of urban women, that is, to advance and retreat in an orderly manner and have a basis for power and responsibility, to properly handle the relationship between rationality and sensibility, and not to abide by stereotypes.
4. Dilemma: Assessment of abandonment and retention
Choice depends on courage and execution. "Bird's Nest Moving", "Jonah's Lake", "Jona's Puzzle", "Save people" need to evaluate the benefits of giving up and retaining, and one of the characteristics of individual psychological growth is that they can face the consequences of choice calmly. Zeng Xiaowen buried a metaphor and twisted the relocation of the bird's nest with the restoration of family affection into a two-line light and dark line. Julian planned the opening of the 365-day music festival, when an inexplicable bird's nest appeared on the cable line, and four bird eggs lay in it, which became the end of the festival. When Julian was anxious about the "relocation" application, his son's distress text message gave him a fatal chase. "Bird's Nest Relocation" is a realistic novel with the feelings of father and son as the core, an absolute respect for the right to life, urging the father to re-examine the intergenerational relationship and the attitude of life and death.
Alan's career crisis directly dragged Jonah to deal with the ensuing economic crisis with him, and Jonah's resentment towards her father Patrick showed no signs of easing. Ill-intentioned Hillary and Leo are using every means to round up the Allen Clinic. On the day of their wedding anniversary, the couple came to Harlem Lake with their own hearts. Tang Jian discussed that marriage was a choice, starting a clinic was a choice, and now filing for bankruptcy is another choice. "Jona's Lake" shows an "Impressionist" texture in the grasp of the sense of matter and light in the natural world.
"Rouli's Puzzle" tells that the little girl Rouli is a child with autism, and her mother Xiaozheng is nearly fifty years old before she conceives her. Autism locks it in her personal field of vision, and she constantly arranges and combines her satisfactory forms of interaction with a puzzle board. Settled overseas for ten years, the socialized kite is also another form of autism. Lu Weiqing expressed the joint decision of mother and daughter, and they decided to be independent of all the puzzles in a posture of an independent puzzle.
Yuan Jinmei's "Saving People" proposes that the history of ordinary people does not fall on books, but only drifts in daily life. The members of the town of Water Wharf were peasants, and the "Talking River" recorded their denominations and norms. The most powerful punishment is segregation, where everyone collectively stays away from those who make mistakes. Spock acquiesced to the group contract, he was completely domesticated in the fear of isolation, but could The "anti-bone" Tony be the object of redemption success? The "thud" of the river's response is a declaration of war on discipline and an insistence on self-rights.
5. Past events: Identify others and yourself from your memories
"Meet" and "Noble" travel through the past and present, interpreting the impermanence of fate, and the protagonist identifies others and himself from his memories. Love lurks in the times, giving birth to hard tentacles, and plunging into the current stable marriage and peaceful state of mind. Chen Ruilin's Qin E is about to meet With Xu Wentao. It was a crush she treasured. The novel follows the time clues of the meeting, using Qin E's mood ups and downs to awaken her memory again and again, and the surging regrets, unwillingness and doubts disturb her mind. The long-lost campus theme in overseas Chinese novels in the new century brings a sweet return to the sweetness of "that year when the soil rain first rested, I was behind you, a round of clear moon as evidence".
Much of the pain that stems from emotions lies in the loss of the possibility of returning to the past. Ah Liang and Ms. Xia met again during a group trip. Shen Qiaosheng arranged a contrast between noble and worldly in terms of both theme and human design. Whether Ms. Xia has recognized the former masseuse has become a mystery to be solved throughout "Noble". Ah Liang is no longer what she used to be, she uses a series of provocative exaggerations to reveal her identity, the key is to establish self-confidence in front of Ms. Xia, but the purpose of the latter's travel is only to recall the memory of the existence of her deceased husband. Noble personality does not need material packaging, and Ms. Xia spent 27 years to understand this truth.
Ni Zhanye has vividly portrayed a new generation of international students in "Alien Traveler", and "Micro-Cloud Decline Grass" is her modern writing of history. The art historian Wu Hong discussed Chen Hongshou's "Shigu" in the Ming Dynasty with "ancient and modern consultation", which can provide a little inspiration for Chinese novel creators how to deal with "ancient", pointing out that "'ancient' was a popular concept of painting theory at that time, and it was also the core of Chen Hongshou's own artistic concept." ...... He did not understand 'ancient' in a narrow sense as the style and inheritance of painting, but on the basis of his "psychology", he integrated this concept into the fundamental interests of life and art, and integrated it with other popular concepts of the late Ming Dynasty such as 'strangeness' and 'fetish' to constitute his own subjectivity. Ni Zhanye's historical novels, jumping out of the "jokes" of genre novels, highlight the humanistic spirit and inject a clear modern life consciousness into historical figures and historical stories. The work travels back to the Southern Song Dynasty, using the dual perspectives of Yue Yun and Yue Lei to reminisce about the events before and after the Yue family was dominated by the times. Yue Yun's deviant ways could not resist the dragging of the court, and Yue Lei's rules and regulations only saved his chaotic life. The clouds and grass flutter with the wind, the years of the Song people are no longer plain and quiet, but the history of the Yue family is typical in legends. Heroic dreams, only a stem of dry grass, a plain flower, in the hot and cool world, only the blood of the Yue family is hot.
6. Kindness: Give continuously
"Dog Love" is a small biography of animals, Yan Geling once again emphasizes equality and respect, providing a vivid, small-cut literary model for the chronological narrative of "Chinese Story". In the reluctance of her dying mother, she was taken away by the members of the literary troupe, and in sixteen months, it grew up and merged into the fiery life of this group of teenagers. In the relatively harsh environment of Tibetan areas, animals and humans have suffered from cold, hunger and fear together, and have worked hard to repay the "tyrannical tenderness" of their youth with loyalty and trust. The most poignant scene of the novel is the execution of a tough man, and the most touching plot is its "postman" function, that is, to convey the adolescent intimacy exclusive to "us", because only it can "understand that we, the men and women in uniform, are carefully hidden and gentle." "We don't have youth in our days, we don't have love, but we can't live without tenacity." Every gaze of Ren Ren on human beings will instantly stir the reader's compassion.
Xia Zhou uses the montage method to intersperse crush and first love in "Longer than Long Run", and the theme of youth growth especially tests the strength of the creator's imagination. Carriages are tension-rich information spaces that provide conditions for communication and also properly protect the privacy that may be involved. "I" met Wei Yiming on the train back to London. "I" didn't understand his obsession with running "Lunma" until he mentioned Wang Xiyue. After Xi Yue's unexpected death, from his diary, Wei Yiming suddenly realized that he had missed the potential turn of his feelings many times before. "I" thus sorted out the acquaintance between "I" and Cheng Zhaohuan, and began to look forward to her return. On the way home, two young people who met in Pingshui exchanged their hearts, and two pure loves inside and outside the campus made life come alive and flexible. "Longer than long-distance running" is the immortal affection.
"Silly Lady" portrays the kindness of ordinary women with dramatic characters. Shi Wei describes herself in the first person of Lotus, recounting her growth from a fool to a silly woman, and after being rejected, abandoned and used, she still gets along with others with unguarded tolerance. Even if the love of parents, the love of husband and wife, and the love of children disappear one after another, the ideas and practices of lotus flowers are still constantly given, hoping to rely on their own strength to find the light that is willing to shine on themselves.
There are two extremes in the academic circles' evaluation of overseas Chinese literature, which are too high and too low, which naturally form some obstacles to the development of Chinese literature. As McLuhan said, each native language teaches its users how to see, perceive, and act in the world in a completely unique way, and the "Annual Exhibition" presents the text in a simplified form, waiting for independent reading and criticism from readers at home and abroad. I notice that every time the characters in the novel are silent, much like Chinese painting, everything begins in the blank and ends in the blank. Silence is extremely malleable, it can be dodging, thinking, identifying or denying, creating pauses that adjust the narrative rhythm of the work when the mood is overflowing. The silence indicates that at this stage, Chinese literature temporarily refrains from overreacting to stimuli and surprises, and forgives the deception and disappointment of the fluctuations in life. Chinese writing is a journey, where to go, how to go, is a writer needs to think about the problem. When Ren Changzhen filmed "Long Live Life", he said that "enter the narrow door, walk a long way, and see the glimmer", I think this is also in line with the love of literature and the persistence of overseas Chinese creators. The importance of the "Annual Exhibition" is to first pave a "return" road, providing the shortest path between seeing/being seen for the Adherents of Chinese creations of different "identity communities".
The author | Dai Yaoqin
Editor | Zhang Jin
Proofreading | Zhao Lin