On February 20th, "The Way Spring Comes: Meeting the Old Gods and New Heroes – A Roundtable Dialogue on the Release of a New Book" was held at the Middle Art Museum. Writers Gu Shi, Early Morning, Wu Shuang, Xiu Xinyu and others came to the scene to discuss topics such as science fiction literature, Chinese history and mythology, and women's writing. The roundtable dialogue was moderated by Huang Wenlong.
"The Way Spring Comes" is an international cooperation project of contemporary Chinese fantasy novels, micro-image culture, Shanghai literature and art, Tor strong cooperation, the English version of The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories overseas synchronous launch, authors, editors, translators, designers for the all-female creator lineup, Yu Chen, Wang Kanyu, Lindsey Hall, Ruoxi Chen, Zhang Yiwen, Jin Xueni jointly edited and planned, The collection of 17 novellas by 15 representative writers of science fiction and fantasy is a wonderful appearance of Chinese fantasy literature "going out" in recent years.
The scene of the event
Discover a novel world
In the early morning, the writer published his first science fiction novel in Science Fiction World. Talking about my journey to writing, I said in the early morning: "The first step I was able to take was thanks to the fact that I met a group of friends who like science fiction. The atmosphere was very good then, but it was different from now. We didn't have a network in the 90s, and it was quite difficult for the big Beijing to get together. I now recall, how could we have met so coincidentally? And so coincidentally met with people with the same temperament, everyone is particularly fond of science fiction, a mind to discuss science fiction... Thinking about the future of mankind, how the future of the earth, whether human beings will still exist after 500,000 years, are thinking about this kind of problem, very magical. ”
Writers in the early hours of the morning
The first science fiction work was published and won the Galaxy Award that year, and since the early morning, it has embarked on the road of science fiction literature creation. She felt that there was a field that had opened a door to her, and she went inside and discovered a new world, and ended up wandering in this world. It's been 27 years since then. "In the past 27 years, I have experienced Chinese science fiction and am particularly happy to see the prosperity of our science fiction literature, and this prosperity, I think, is just the beginning."
Writer Gu Shi
Gu Shi specializes in urban planning, and she believes that "urban planning and science fiction have one thing in common, both are about the future." So I either live in a real future or in a fantasy future. ”
She published her first science fiction novel in 2011, and she has a history of science fiction literature writing for more than a decade. Just because of the busy work, "the yield is also notoriously low." "Basically, short and medium stories are 20,000 or 30,000 words a year, which is also the persistence of hobbies after work."
Writer Xiu Xinyu
When Xiu Xinyu was still in school, he published his works in the "Campus Star" column of Science Fiction World. She was a particularly good student in Chinese and had participated in the New Concept Essay Contest, but only writing about science fiction gave her a sense of belonging. "I found that I wrote science fiction, even people older than me, they would read it, they would give me guidance, and I suddenly felt that science fiction was a warm family." 」
The reason why he has always insisted on creating is because Xiu Xinyu feels that science fiction or fantasy literature is a metaphor for life. "I'm a liberal arts student, and I actually have a hard time writing science fiction sometimes, because I have to look up a lot of information. But in order to achieve a metaphor for life, such insistence is still very worthwhile. ”
Writer Wu Shuang
Wu Shuang, who wrote her first science fiction novel in 2012, recalls that a lot of things happened that year, and a lot of thoughts and emotions squeezed in her heart. "I felt like there was a flashpoint in that moment, and then I quickly wrote a novel, based on my own experience of emotions and life, when the heroine was also a girl who graduated from graduate school and was going on a graduation trip." 」
After writing it, I submitted it to "Science Fiction World", and it was published, and I was encouraged by the responsible editor. Since then, Wu Shuang has been writing science fiction novels. Today, she is a film and television screenwriter, the literary director of the "Three-Body Problem" project, and "a person who specializes in writing stories for a living."
Ancient works are a treasure trove of fantasy literature
Talking about the influence of Chinese mythology and history on science fiction writing, he said in the early morning: "There is a harmony and a compromise between science fiction and reality, and from this perspective, we can find many themes from the culture and traditions of our own nation." ”
Mr. Lu Xun once used the "New Compilation of Stories" to reconstruct traditional stories, and in the early morning he also wrote "New Compilation of Stories": "Qingluo", "White Snake" and "Oolong". In addition, Pu Songling has an article "Stealing Peaches" about Chinese illusion, and in the early morning, the small article "Stealing Peaches" was rewritten into science fiction. She said: "In Pu Songling's novels, you can also find a lot of interesting fantasy works. In fact, these ancient Chinese works are really a treasure trove for our fantasy works, and we can find a lot of interesting materials in them. ”
Gu Shi said that his writing is strong in translation, because he has become a science fiction fan after watching "Star Wars" since he was a child. But the novel "Deyu", written in 2012, is a work rooted in traditional Zhiwei novels. "We went out and found out that people asked who you were, and then we began to ask myself this question," Gu Shi said, so she looked back, "remove all the translations, and see what kind of content can be found to support our science fiction creation from our own cultural concepts and traditional expressions." ”
Xiu Xinyu believes that no matter what kind of novel, in fact, the end of the writing is still writing about people, whether it is the West or the East, ancient or modern, the novel is a mirror for our current life. At the same time, she also mentioned that a new Chinese trend of thought has emerged in the entire social environment, and some readers abroad have great interest in listening to the voices from China. "Since we have the opportunity to pass on to them, what to pass on is what we need to think carefully about."
Female writers can stand up to "most of the sky"
What's special about this collection of stories is that all the members involved in the collaboration are all women. Even two-thirds of the audience who attended the new book sharing meeting were women.
Speaking of the female writing group in science fiction literature, he said in the early morning that female writers in the field of science fiction are "not only not a minority, but also greatly promote the development of Chinese science fiction." Zhao Haihong won the grand prize of the Galaxy Award, and Hao Jingfang won the Hugo Award. "Chinese female writers are not a problem with half the sky in the history of the development of Chinese science fiction, I think it is mostly the sky."
Wu Shuang said that male writers and female writers, if this gender label can be taken down, only the soul is different. "Because the styles between male writers and male writers are also very different. Lu Xun and Bai Xianyong, their differences have exceeded the gender differences. ”
At the same time, she also pointed out that it is difficult for women to write something as hard as "The Three-Body Problem", from emotions to settings, to the attention and deep thinking about war instincts, or some kind of fanaticism, these things are a little farther away from women. The strengths of female writers lie in spiritual aspects, such as delicacy, tenderness, or attention to the instincts of life's pain, as well as topics related to women becoming mothers. She also mentioned, "Now in the market economy environment, women are increasingly having their own right to speak, which is caused by consumption." ”
Gu Shi believes that in China, 80%-90% of the winners of science fiction literature awards are men. She mentioned that in the 2021 Chinese Nebula Award, because Teacher Dai Jinhua served as the chairman of the jury, the jury composition was six women and one man, and the main winners of the work were four women and one man, which was a very interesting phenomenon. "If there are no women in the jury, no women in the editorial decisions, and no women in more voters, women's information will not be caught."
"Right now we're at the center of a very interesting whirlpool. From my personal creative point of view, I feel that I have the responsibility to write some more powerful female characters, so that when children read Chinese science fiction stories and Chinese fantasy stories, he knows that the original role of women is not only a wife and mother, her role can be an architect, an urban planner, a writer, a scientist, an astronaut in space, and can be the first person to explore the moon and then bring changes to the world, which is a responsibility of us as a female writer in the present. Gu Shi said.
It is reported that the pan-fantasy novels included in "The Way Spring Comes" have a variety of styles: one type of oriental ancient style elements, such as "Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Taiji Taro Mud" reconstructs the time travel of the traditional literati Zhang Dai, "The Way Spring Comes" recounts the ancient mythological stories of the Chinese nation, "Deyu" dezhiwei novel Shen Yun, "WudeDu Robbery" from the animal cultivation series, "Ying Long" can be regarded as a new story editor; one type throws the imagination into a broader time and space, such as "The Equalization Formula" is a cosmic scale about the evolution of species, The magnificent epic of the rise and fall of civilization, "Baby Baby I Love You" is based on the development of a holographic parent-child game "Raising a Baby" to explore the essence of parent-child love, "The Secret of The Mountain and the Name" tells the traditional folk rituals, while the algorithm of the mountain is hidden in the family tree and sung from generation to generation; a more textual experimental nature, such as "The Woman With the Corpse" telling absurd allegories, "Blackbird" has a distinct magic realism style... Finally, Shi Jingyuan's paper "Gender Construction and the Future of Chinese Science Fiction" is used as a postscript to analyze the gender issues of contemporary science fiction and trigger our thinking on broader issues such as the state of science and technology in our time.
Nandu reporter Huang Qian