Xia Ba Dingzhen, male, Tibetan, from Xiangcheng County, Sichuan Province, member of the Chinese Ethnic Minority Writers Association, member of the Sichuan Writers Association, author of the essay collection "Memories of Crossing the Buddha Pearl Gorge", folk culture collection "Dream Seeking Shambhala", "Roaming Shambhala", "Shambhala on the Edge of the Sky". Many of his works have been published in important domestic journals. He has successively worked in education, townships, propaganda, literary associations, cultural tourism, media and other departments.
"The Sorrows of the Land" takes the absurdity of the chaotic world under the old social system as the historical background, takes the love and hatred of a family as the main line, and supports the ancient culture of the Tea Horse Road, telling a mental journey in the face of life and death and the ups and downs of fame and fortune. The novel uses the conflict between reality and faith to outline the history of the rise and fall of a family, as well as the admiration and confusion of human nature by a nation, a region, and even the entire human race. The whole story is combined with virtual reality, deeply excavating the psychological trends of different characters and different nationalities in different cultural backgrounds and different confusions. The whole novel, whether silently or silently, interrogates what is the role of culture, what is the power of faith, and what is the true nature of human nature. Tsering Rob, a famous Tibetan writer, winner of the Lu Xun Literature Prize and editor-in-chief of Tibetan Literature, said: "With revenge as the main line, Tsering Rob tells a journey of youth's growth, and there is no shortage of legends and unique folk culture, which awakens a memory on the Tea Horse Ancient Road. ”
In September 2021, "The Lament of the Land" was officially published and distributed by the China Writers Publishing House. In order to uncover the story behind "The Lamentations of the Earth", the reporter of this newspaper conducted an exclusive interview with Xia Ba Ding Zhen, and the following is the interview transcript.
About authoring
Reporter: When did you start writing literature?
Xia Ba Dingzhen: Since changing from the position of teacher to the post of cultural tourism in 2006, he began to try to read literary books and create some "copying" literary works. To tell the truth, in that period, I dare not call it literary creation, and can only be expressed as "parrot learning tongue" style writing.
Reporter: In the process of writing, which writers have a greater influence on you?
Xia Ba Ding Zhen: In the early days of writing, the biggest influence on me were the writers from the township and city, Teacher Ge Rong Chaimei, Teacher Jiang Xiuying, and Teacher Wa Xi Pengzuo. Because I was familiar with them, with the emotional world they described, and with their beautiful way of speaking, they became my "role model" guides. Later, with the encouragement and support of Teacher Ge Rong, I began to have the courage to express my intentions in a literary way, and I also began to learn to read world famous works. In fact, literary creation is a comprehensive expression and emotional sublimation of personal emotions and reading inspiration. Later, in the process of reading the world's famous works, I met the Italian writer Giovanni. Boccaccio, Colombian writer Garcia. Márquez, American writer Jerome M. David. Salinger et al. Their work made me really understand what literature is. What is the ultimate meaning of a literary work? And how to keep the original intention and mission of literary creation?
Reporter: What is literature as you understand it?
Xia Ba Dingzhen: Literature as I understand it is the way and means to express the objective world and subjective cognition in different forms. As the "recorder", "communicator" and "inheritor" of human development, literature's thoughts and emotions should be interconnected, and it should be the highest art form for human beings to interpret nature, interpret the essence of life, and interpret the wisdom of life. The greatest significance of literature is to spread truth, goodness and beauty, and to avoid falsehood, evil and ugliness. Any form of excellent literature does not care about the spoken language or the words themselves, but directly attacks the ideological understanding and emotional experience in the depths of human nature, so as to recognize the nature of human nature, summarize the inferior roots of human nature, carry forward human civilization, and disseminate a positive and healthy world outlook, outlook on life, outlook on life, and outlook on the world.
About the new book
Reporter: What was your motivation to publish "The Lamentations of the Earth"?
Xia Ba Ding Zhen: I cannot publish "The Sorrows of the Land" without the best opportunity for the great prosperity and development of the mainland's cultural undertakings in the new era. Because the state attaches great importance to cultural undertakings, many relevant policies have been introduced to support the development of literary and artistic works. At that time, the first draft of my novel was submitted to the State Literary Association. The leaders of the State Federation of Literature and Literature attached great importance to it, and finally decided to fully fund the publication of my novel "Lamentations of the Earth" through holding meetings and other means.
Reporter: What are the gains from writing "The Lamentations of the Earth"? Which character is your favorite, and why?
Xia Ba Dingzhen: The original intention of conceiving "Lamentations of the Earth" was to dig deeper, interpret and analyze the origin of human nature through character shaping and storyline, and to tell a more objective and true way of dealing with the world. The biggest gain in actual writing should be the character shaping of his own pen. "Lamentations of the Earth" is my first novel, I always like to write some prose and folklore works before, but poetry, prose and other literary genres can not express what they want to express from multiple angles, all directions and depths, after countless times of entanglement and anxiety, I decided to try to write a long novel. The whole novel avoids the character modeling method of "good guys and bad guys", but creates many multi-faceted, changeable and strange character images. In the process of describing the appearance, posture, psychological activity, words and deeds of the characters, etc., I have become more and more fond of the literary genre of novels. Among the characters in the novel, I like Nyima more, like his timidity, wandering, narcissism, greed, hypocrisy, bravery, fear, etc. In my opinion, the character image of "Nyima" is the real human nature.
Reporter: How do you balance work and writing?
Xia Ba DingZhen: In fact, work and writing are complementary existences. I personally don't think that work affects writing, and writing doesn't affect work. Work is the best way for us to contact society, and the purpose and meaning of writing is to truly reflect the social and people's feelings, truly interpret people's feelings, and thus sublimate into a "spiritual delicacy" that can guide social civilization forward. My original love of writing is very simple, without adding too much "worldly" desire, just writing for the sake of writing, so I don't need to balance the relationship between work and writing with too much confusion and confusion.
Reporter: Is there anything you want to say to your family or your readers? After "The Lamentation of the Earth", what other book plans are there?
Xia Ba Dingzhen: As a literature lover, I sincerely hope that the vast number of literary lovers, literary volunteers and readers will love and engage in literary creation with emotions higher than the world, and read literary works with the original intention of nourishing spiritual life. Literary creation is the most beautiful way for me to experience life, feel life, and enrich life, and I am currently working on the creation of my second novel, "Tidbits Like the Wind", hoping that it will be officially published and distributed in 2023. In my future work and life, I want to collect more "grounded" literary materials through grassroots style collection, and create more novels that reflect the emotions and life characteristics of the times. With the perspective, structure and genre advantages of the novel, let your literary feelings be more full, the literary ideas more unique, and the literary works more intriguing, so as to serve our time and current society.
Reporter: Lanseram
Edit: Yoshishi Nematsu
Editor-in-charge: Xiao Xiao
Review: Huang Liangfu