Ding Fan: The power of tragedy
The world is too big, there are too many works, and in terms of my reading, it can only be a hole.
The spring of 2021 did not stop because of the warmth of the climate to stop the epidemic affecting the world, although there are many good book recommendations in the Chinese literary world, but there are really not many good works that make people feel excited, although publishers and various newspapers and periodicals have done their best to publicize a huge number of good works with various promotional means, but when you open these works, you will be disappointed. I have also participated in various awards, although there is no shortage of works that are somewhat exciting, but if you put them in the long river of literary history and compare them vertically and horizontally, you will find that in the face of a world-wide era of great tragedy, what our writers often lack is the courage to find humanity in the aesthetics of tragedy and the inner eyes to discover materials. So I tried to find tragedy in this disordered world.
Yu Hua's "Wencheng" is the first novel I read during the Spring Festival last year, I saw this tragic historical metaphor with joy from my tearful eyes, the power of human nature shocked my soul, the author was very cruel this time, he did not let his characters "live", the shocking power of tragic aesthetics made people get the washing of the soul.
Hu Xuewen's "Yousheng", as an epic writing of the current touching Chinese vernacular novel, also reflects profound tragedy in the shaping of the historical symbol of "grandmother", and if the reader can see the careful expression of tragic art in approaching the theme in the layered story narrative, then you can clearly see the human strength in China's century-old changes. Wang Yao's "Folk Songs" tried to succeed from the language level and narrative structure at the instigation of the "Novel Revolution", but behind the poetic expression of landscape paintings, there was a sense of historical vicissitudes and a faint sadness, revealing still a tragic aesthetic implication, behind a teenager, a village is not only a grand historical background, it is more of a tragedy that penetrates the depths of the characters' souls and cannot be seen.
Wang Anyi's "A Knife, a Thousand Words" places "silent tears" in the fate of the characters, I think that many of Wang Anyi's novels have tragic qualities, but she often turns a tragedy into a comedy, such as the novella "Three Loves" series and "The Century on the Post" in the last century. This is precisely the brilliance of the writer, who carefully constructs the character history from the perspective of secular life, but I can still see the hazy tragedy from the historical rings of the character's life.
Feng Qiuzi sent me an updated edition of Reigan's "Things on the Earth" that she edited and the Reed Bank Diary of the three thick books "Dirt is Beside Me", which is undoubtedly a tragic salvation of the last romanticism on Chinese land and a final tribute to "land morality", as Mr. Lin Xianzhi said in the preface: "For him, writing is a practical activity of personality, and the consistency of personality and art requires him to return to the origin of history again and again." Such an unproductive motivation for writing makes us ashamed of so many living writers. The author, who died at the end of the last century, left one of the best words in the preface to Things on Earth: "Thoreau said that civilization improved the houses of mankind, but not at the same time the people who lived in them." The implication is that returning to the spiritual homeland is the faith that embraces the earth.
Can Reed's last words from 12 years ago remind us?
Undoubtedly, the five-volume Clarke Anthology of Art History is my favorite book to read, because I have learned from Clarke's commentary on the art of painting that there are many truths similar to literary expression, as well as the striking similarities between art history and literary history.
Ding Xiaoyuan: Ban Lanzhi
As the "kuaishou" of the literature of the times, the reportage is hanging in the air, and the capital letter closes up the magnificent weather and great epic of the people's new journey of striving for a new journey and building a new era of meritorious service. The Red Chronicle is the most eye-catching theme of the year. Focusing on the centennial birthday of the Party, a number of non-fiction narrative works on Party history and revolutionary history were launched at an appropriate time. Xu Jingeng's "Wangdao" retraces "the past and present lives of the first Chinese full translation of the Communist Manifesto", and "Pregnancy" tells the story of the Red Chamber of Peking University; Xu Jian's "Tianxiao: 1921" and Ding Xiaoping's "Red Boat Sets Sail", which truly reproduce the great spirit of party building in the affectionate touch of returning to the scene of great history; "Meiwen" has opened columns throughout the year, of which Hu Songtao's "Yan'an Fanlu" is a series of narratives of Yan'an stories before and after the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Works such as He Jianming's "Yuhuatai" and Gao Jianguo's "Dead and Alive Chikuo Hero Mountain" focus on the heroic revolution and sacrificial life of the party. These works are based on the stylistic excellence of reportage, refining and deepening the writing of this year's major themes, which is a special tribute of literature to the centennial party.
Green is the color of life, and it is an important symbol of China's new concept, new development and new pattern in the new era. The new changes in the era of induction have their own sharp and quick reactions. In 2021, ecological civilization builders, managers and writers and researchers of ecological literature will interact and stimulate to generate a new ecology of ecological reportage writing. He Jianming's "That Mountain, That Water", the first ecological reportage in the new era, Li Qingsong's "Believe in Nature" focuses on specific individual creatures, explores their natural materiality and spirituality, and discovers the way of connecting everything in them. This year, China officially established the first batch of five national parks. Gu Yue's "Origin of China - The Birth of Sanjiangyuan National Park" and Ren Linju's "Tiger Howling - Tracking and Exploring wild Siberian tigers" describe two of these national parks, writing about the world and conveying the harmonious picture of the community of life.
In the final analysis, reportage must also be implemented to the basic point of "human literature". In 2021, the characters of the reportage are full of dazzling characters, the characters are various, and their reproduction is correspondingly many styles, and the painted carvings out the party spirit, professional characteristics and even human nature that the protagonist holds. "The Earth Is Like a Song" and "This Man of Water and Soil" respectively write about two people's policemen with ordinary lives but lofty spirits. "Chinese Peasant City" is an epic legend about the Chinese peasants building a city, and the most wonderful of which is the spiritual empowerment of the legendary creator's generation of peasant strangers. "Junsheng I Am Not Born" is a scarce work in reportage writing, and the main body of the text is constructed by the story of Zhang Yanping and Yang Nansheng's love. The purest love is the most beautiful humanity.
"Colorful Chronicles" is my 2021 reportage keyword, which includes the red chronicles, green reports, and character paintings mentioned above.
Xie Youshun: A fragment of hope
In 2021, I saw some fragmentary hope in some works, which seemed to be a comfort to a difficult world. "Echoes" of Things writes about a case, a family, and is actually about the process of human fission. In those most ordinary days, the beauty and tranquility are eroded a little, and this inadvertent emotional and psychological change is frightening and desperate. But things also measure the bottom line of human nature and recast the belief in love through the awakening and guilt that arise from the ups and downs of self-knowledge. I was impressed by his analysis, exploration, cognition, and protection of the remaining hopes of human nature. Shao Li's writing horizons and patterns are becoming more and more broad, and she has found a narrative path from small and large, from old to new, from near and deep, starting from the stories of herself, parents and families, but telling the flow and inheritance of blood, ethnic groups, times and cultures. Such is the case with The Yellow River Story. In the novel, "I" explore and sort out the stories of my parents, and experience the process of blood and tears from other places to my hometown, from escape to return, from estranged confrontation to implicit reconciliation, "I" have completed the "journey of finding roots" in blood and emotion, but in the end, I have achieved a more solid rebirth of life and spirit. In the reflection of deep reflection, in the retrospection of the outlook, there is no lack of gentleness in the depth, and there is deep affection hidden in the sharpness, which is undoubtedly the submerged accumulation of Shao Li's writing in recent years. Du Yanglin's "Sting" writes about Ling Yunqing's growth process, and he grew up surrounded by suffering. A storm he encountered in the wilderness made him have a deeper understanding of suffering, and he realized that everything he experienced in the past may be the disaster that he must endure when he grows up: he is a teenager without swords and arrows, a rural child without a golden armor, no relatives to accompany him, in the stormy wilderness, ushered in 12 years old, and ushered in the courage and self-confidence to face the hardships and hardships of life brought by the years. So we see that suffering not only did not crush Yunqing, but polished Yunqing's soul, giving him the courage and hope to fight with it and constantly climb upwards. The village in Li Youre's "Li Writer and His Rural Friends" has a humidity, heat, chaos, and color that is unique to southern China, with a boiling voice and a sentient being. Those small individuals have a tortuous life experience and a rich passion for life, and vividly interpret what China is at this time. With the humility and acumen of a writer, Li Youre wrote down the faces and days of the most experienced vicissitudes at the end of Chinese society, and also let us see the most cherished will and confidence of a Forward China. These fragments of hope and faith are all accumulated after a long period of suffering, so they are particularly touching.
Zhang Li: Women's Literature and Women's Life
Over the years, the women's literature and women's life of our time have always been the key words in my work. At the end of last year, I compiled the "2021 Women's Literature Annual Selection" and will meet with readers in March this year. This is the first annual selection of women's literary works in the history of Chinese literature, because it is the first one, there is no reference experience, so it was initially launched to overcome various difficulties. In the blink of an eye, three years have passed, and the annual selection has become more and more loved by readers and more and more concerned by the whole society, which is the happiest thing for me.
For me, the significance of carrying out the annual selection of women's literature is in two aspects: First, I want to leave an annual sample of Chinese women's literature, from these works we can see the changes in the spiritual outlook and literary temperament of women's literature, which may not be obvious at the moment, but in a long period of time, it will be very clear, and it will also be conducive to later scholars to study. Second, I want to record the survival of Chinese women through such a selection of works. I believe that the record of life here, with its richness and diversity that news reports cannot cover, is considered from an anthropological and sociological standpoint. The basic framework of the annual selection is the 20 stories told by 20 female writers, selected from excellent works published in many literary journals across the country. Each year 5 to 6 new faces are selected. In this way, I hope to encourage young women writers to write. In 2021, I opened the public name "Women's Literature Studio" and launched the "Women's Literature Good Books List", which I and my graduate student team jointly initiated. The women's literature good book list pays attention to works with deep feminine spirit, and the purpose is to hope that more and more people will read these excellent works, hope that more and more people will see women's life and survival, and hope that the whole society will have more and more awareness of gender equality.
Another key word I have in 2021 is New Women's Writing, publishing New Women's Writing: Beauty Is Changing. With regard to women's literature, I define it as "a literary work written mainly by female writers with femininity and expressing the life and living conditions of women." The reason why "New Women's Writing" emphasizes the social gender of writers, while focusing on finding hidden gender relations in daily life, the reason why the concept of "New Women's Writing" is also to emphasize that it has important differences with the naming of "personalized writing", "body writing", "middle-class writing" and so on. What I'm thinking about is what is really female writing for today's writers, and how to write with a deep feminine spirit in today's middle-Chinese environment.
In fact, the life of women in the epidemic era is a question that I have been paying attention to for the past two years, for example, how should we understand the life of the female elders who watch our children and do housework for us in the epidemic era? In the past, we always recognized and understood the value of women from a social perspective, and it seems that only participation in social activities can reflect the value of women - if we regard family life as a part of social life, then how do we measure the value of these elderly women who silently take care of the third generation in family life, and even the value of housewives? They are actually ignored by us. In the field of literature, can writers see these women and give them deep attention and writing? That's my interest. Giving favor to those who are humble and silent has always been a fine tradition of modern Chinese women's literary writing, and I think this tradition needs to be inherited and carried forward today.
Shen Xiayan: Data, list, reading anxiety disorder
When the word "inner volume" came into the world, I thought it was a young man's game gimmick. Unexpectedly, when I received book donations, bookstore visits, especially to the scene of some awards, I deeply felt the ubiquity of the inner volume, and the most significant change in the field of literature was the growth of data, longer long stories, more luxurious binding, and a stronger recommendation camp. The average annual volume of writers has increased, and the total output of literature has increased significantly. Literary fields are interactive and interconnected, and when literary production increases, literary publishing, dissemination, criticism and consumption also change accordingly.
I remember when talking about online literature at the end of the last century, everyone thought that it was just a change in the media, a change in quantity, and more than 20 years later, it is estimated that no one dares to judge so easily today. Humans are being defined and grouped by the web, our reading habits are being changed, and theoretically everyone who uses a digital phone is a self-media source. Traditional media, the public account of publishing houses, everyone's circle of friends, and the comments at the end of each article may be transformed into a cycle of literary production, reproduction, and even infinity. The boundaries of literature are expanding like never before. At the end of the year, this kind of large-scale push of book lists and lists is itself a representation of the inner volume, and all over the Internet are "top ten good books" and "annual rankings", which evoke not reading, but anxiety.
Hu Xuewen's "Yousheng" has both the thickness of visible publications, the height of life and the breadth of history, and the belief of "grandmothers" in life itself has developed and surpassed on the basis of Shangguan Lushi of "Fat Buttocks". By portraying the uniqueness of "grandmother", Hu Xuewen tries to grasp the roots of Chinese culture. Li Zishu's "Flowing Place" is a gratifying achievement of Chinese literature in recent years. The novel integrates the growth of the blind Chinese woman Yinxia into the historical currents of MCA. The blind girl carries the innate humility, but there is no self-pity expected by intellectuals, and her self-consciousness and independence eventually allow her to open her soul equally with Gu Youguang in such a narrow and dark space as the blackout elevator, "Welcome to my world"! The contemplation of the Indian god of wisdom, Janissa, and the care of the Malay teacher Ismail also illuminate the spiritual world of Yinxia. The light of the xia shines into the "vulgar land", and Lai Zishu accepts the light from foreign cultures with an open mind, which is the new quality of the contemporary MCA literature. Lin Zhao's "Tidal Chart" attempts to present Guangdong's humid marine culture from the perspective of "frog", the large introduction of Cantonese makes the novel have a strong local color, and the drifting history of frogs is a response to the encounter between Chinese and Western cultures. The animal perspective is a great challenge for the narrator, not only to have all-encompassing natural knowledge, but also to have a true feeling of equality of all things. In terms of dialect writing, Xiao Jianguo's "Fishing for the Moon on the Seabed" is also heartwarming. In terms of formal exploration, Li Hongwei's efforts are commendable. The light leopard's depiction of the boredom and emptiness of the intellectual class is deeply popular, and the classical rhyme of Chen Chuncheng's language is also widely spread.
The achievements of prose can be described as a hundred flowers blooming and slanting out, and the achievements of non-fiction are particularly spectacular. Chen Fumin's "Forty Degrees North Latitude" has a unique perspective and explores the grand historical content. Han Shaogong's "Life Suddenly" reminds us that the west, globalization and other words have been solidified, and the real West is concrete, far from Europe (North) America, as well as the vast South America and Africa. Li Xiuwen's "Poetry Comes to See Me" makes us feel how classical poetry and poets have influenced life in the present. Li Jingze's "Running Collection" contains his remarks; Lin Gang's "Man Zhi Zhi Zhi" presents his meditations. The Lengya Sutra says that "the wisdom of the mind is knowledge, and the transformation of knowledge into wisdom", wisdom is the crystallization of knowledge. I am willing to read "manga" on the extended line of Montaigne, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, which are the author's "confusion" of life from the beginning of "not confused", 282 manga covers many aspects of philosophy and ethics, and the Yoshimitsu Kataba presented in the handwriting always reminds people of the sea of stars of human thought. "Rambling knowledge" also calls on us to maintain introspection in the era of inner volumes, slowly live and slowly explore, and wait for knowledge to be transformed into wisdom.
Xu Chenliang: Restart
2021 is another "restart year" for me as a literary editor to empty memory and debug frequencies. In addition to professional reading, I also continue to pay attention to the latest trends in original literature. This is not only due to the work habits of literary editors, but also the more urgent need is to use the thinking and expression of contemporaries to sharpen and correct the cognition of self and the times. In recent years, many writers have chosen to return to the classical vein, and what impressed me most this year was Li Xiuwen's "Poetry Comes to See Me" and the young scholar Yang Wurui's "Nineteen Days of Talk: Life and Heroes in the Nineteen Ancient Poems", those poems that pinned the soul of the ancient people appeared like a stick, and my life experience was connected with the broader mountains and rivers under the classical "tearing", expanding the heart body and expanding the style.
On the other hand, in contrast to the classical, William Wang's novel collection "Wild Future" interprets the future "wild history" and explores the "future poetics", illuminating the dark bottom of the modern human survival experience from the direction of the vast starry sky. Echoing the sugar bandit's novel collection Odyssebo, the stories of artificial intelligence, alien civilizations, and species fission echo the echoes of classical epics, "Cyborg" and "Odyssey" mixed into one, pointing to a more primitive literary proposition: how man constantly fights various illusions in order to become a complete subject of action capable of making choices.
Compared with the blockbuster long stories on the major lists, I am more interested in the demeanor of the short stories and the endless possibilities they contain. There are several collections of novels that must not be left out. Dongjun's "Faces" integrates the quasi-world observations and quasi-worldly observations that wander the edge of daily life and illusions into an original style, so that the faces and figures, emotions and fetishes of those nameless people who are hidden between reality and history are flipped on paper. Zhang Huiwen's "Birds and Pond Fish" focuses on the abrasions that time brings to the soul, and the shadows that time casts on the individual — in this shadow, she also finds an appropriate counterpart for her unique "silent aesthetic". Li Hao's "Flying Stories" uses 42 colorful short chapters to depict 42 kinds of flying scenes, like a calm and sophisticated but childlike magician, every time he swings his magic wand, a cluster of flames rises in the middle of those words that have been used rustily. There is also Yang Benfen's "Driftwood", a straight and halo-filled text, recording the lives of ordinary people who are loaded with heavy loads and floats, cold and warm - they are born, they live, they leave, leaving a small and short memory like dewdrops in the world, "but before the dewdrops are broken, it is also shining with crystal light, it is a complete universe." In this sense, the work of this octogenarian is like a kind of warm retention, allowing people to gaze, listen and recognize again before they disappear, and allowing me to confirm the freedom and nobility that can be achieved by writing.
Quetzalcoatl: Responsibility, Creation, Youth
As a reader and observer of online literature, I have carefully recalled that in the past year, I have not only experienced the magnificent waves blown by the strong wind of the times in the online literature scene, but also felt the happiness and warmth from the good stories that I could not bear to put down. Online literature has received more and more attention from all parties, which is not only the result of their personal efforts, but also the choice of the times and the people. If I had to summarize my perception in a few key words, they could be responsibility, creativity, and youth.
liability. In the past, we used the words of entertainment, entertainment, and capital to describe online literature, which actually exaggerated its non-literary aspects. When it is read and appreciated by 460 million readers, the expression of ideas and values as the primary function of literature becomes very important. In the first year of the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan", the task of building a cultural power put forward by the Fifth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has entered into implementation, and together with traditional literature, the network literature of "many people with great strength" has undoubtedly been given a new cultural responsibility, which is a major adjustment in the functional positioning of online literature. "Originating from the grassroots and growing up in the folk", online literature is most familiar with the reality and emotional world of Chinese life, so it can quickly respond to the times and the call of readers, and become a literary force that vividly highlights the spirit of the times and the Chinese atmosphere. 2021's "Big Dipper Star" (Bandit Jia), "Changle Li: Prosperous As I Wish" (Xiao Riding School), "Thirty Thousand Miles East into the Sea" (He Changzai) and other works prove this.
create. Because it provides new things to society, online literature will become more and more influential after its birth. The innovation and creation formed by the production mechanism enhances its sustainable development ability: first, it creates narrative art rich in national aesthetic characteristics, which attracts readers not only novel imaginary content, but also the expression method suitable for the aesthetic habits of Chinese readers, such as "Heavenly Holy Order" (Jiang Shengnan), "The Code of Dreams in the Bridge" (Aging) and other works that imply the creative transformation of Chinese popular literature and folk literature traditions; the second is to become the creator of the popular fashion of the times, cross-media adaptation of film and television, games, Animation and other continuously create social and cultural hotspots, adapted from online novels such as "You are my glory" (Gu Man), "Snow in the Sword Line" (Beacon Theatre Princes) and other film and television dramas have created good ratings; the third is to create a new mechanism for the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture, in addition to tens of thousands of translated works and IP going to sea, the output of the creation mode is the new highlight of the year, and hundreds of thousands of foreign authors have created online on the websites where China has landed overseas.
youth. According to relevant statistics, 60% of online literature readers under the age of 40. Among them, nearly 40% of the "Generation Z" authors born from 1995 to 2009 are "post-95s" authors, and 80% of the new authors in the year of Reading's websites are "post-95s". The China Internet Literature Influence List held by the China Writers Association Network Literature Center has set up a "newcomer new work list" for "post-90s" writers, and many of the "big gods" among the participating writers are familiar old faces of readers, but they are still young people. This is a very surprising phenomenon. Youth writing means more vigorous vitality and a new brain hole, and so many young people entering the industry bring potential and hope.
Wang Shiqiang: "New Landscape Poetry" deserves attention
Landscape and nature are one of the enduring themes of poetry, but under the background of the epidemic is still raging, life is facing isolation, and values are torn apart, landscape and nature have taken on new meanings through people's re-observation. Recently, the writing on landscapes and nature has become a remarkable writing phenomenon in terms of quality and quantity, and these works may be called "new landscape poems". Some of these are continuations of the personal writing lineage, and some are recent occurrences, a kind of "turning" or "mutation". The writing of "New Landscape Poetry" is different from the "Landscape Poetry" of the era of agricultural civilization, and it is also different from the "Pastoral Poems" and "Vernacular Poems" that have been popular in recent years and are mainly used as the antithesis of "modern diseases", but also maintain a full dialogue and tension between landscape, nature and contemporary reality, not only the pursuit of landscape and nature transcendence and permanence, but also the contemporary, problem awareness and reality orientation. In my limited reading horizons, the poems published only this year include Lu Ye's "Under the Sky", Jiang Fei's "Mud and Soil", Zhang Ergun's "Moving Mountains", Sentinel's "On the Side of Nature", Quanzi's "Landscape and The World", Liu Nian's "All the Secrets of the World" and other important achievements of "New Landscape Poetry". On the one hand, "New Landscape" embodies the discovery and pursuit of a higher, more permanent, and more stable value dimension, and on the other hand, it also contains spiritual qualities such as independence, loneliness, non-cooperation, and non-compromise, with extremely rich connotations, and the attitude and position of the writer are not the same, or contemplation, or chanting, or philosophy, or enlightenment, or warmth, or loneliness, and so on. On the whole, "New Landscape Poetry" is not an escape or deviation from "realism", but an opening and exploration of it, and it is to a large extent "involved" in the era in a detached way, examining and reflecting on the diseases and mistakes of the times, and expressing the true spirit of the times from the back. Such writing is effective and enlightening, responding from one side to the question of "what is a poet" in a poor era.