Luo Weizhang, winner of the "Manmatsuura Literature Prize": Writing is diving, and fragmenting information damages the spirit

The 13th "Wansongpu Literature Award" was announced a few days ago, and Liu Yudong's short story "Fragrant Morning", Luo Weizhang's novella "Mirror City", Shucai's poem "Ya Ge", Pang Yuliang's essay "On That Wet Plain", and Cong Xinqiang's commentary "Literary Life: Literary Directions in the Context of Global Dialogueism" won novel, poetry, prose and theory awards respectively.

According to public information, the "Wansongpu Literature Award" is jointly sponsored by Wansongpu College, Ludong University, Shandong Education Publishing House and Shandong Literature Museum, and is set up to reward Chinese writing.

The winner, Luo Weizhang, is a native of Dazhou, Sichuan, and is currently the editor-in-chief of Sichuan Literature and the vice chairman of the Sichuan Writers Association. Luo Weizhang told Red Star News that his award-winning novel "Mirror City", originally published in the 5th issue of Zhong Shan magazine in 2021, tells "the story of a small-town character wandering around the country." The Wansongpu Literature Prize commented, "Luo Weizhang constructed a novel's "Mirror City" with multiple mirror images of history and the present, city and countryside, reality and fiction, presenting a state of existence that is both true and illusory, also dreaming and dreaming, alternating between life and death, history and reality in the way of 'drama within a play', and in the memories and imaginations of personal encounters and the history of his home country, he wrote the entanglement of reality logic and historical paradox, the self-examination of spiritual allegory and value destination." On March 20, a Reporter from Red Star News interviewed Luo Weizhang.

Luo Weizhang According to the interviewee

Red Star News: Did you expect to win the 13th "Manmatsuura Literature Prize"?

Luo Weizhang: That's not. Winning an award is a good thing, it will give the writer some encouragement, and spur himself to write better. But the awards are additive, unexpected, and do not constitute the purpose of writing. A true writer probably doesn't think about winning an award. How to express yourself more completely is the root and lifeblood.

Red Star News: What was the reason for writing Mirror City?

Luo Weizhang: Thirty years ago, a person in my unit at that time suddenly left his job, and came back half a year later, saying that he had written a script for a company in Beijing, saying that he was very popular in the company and was a backbone. This surprised me. He burned a boiler on the unit, and usually did not hear that he could write, let alone hear that he had written anything. At that time, I was a bachelor, he loved to come to my dormitory to talk, one day he came to say goodbye, said that he was going to Beijing again, and at the same time brought a copy of his newly written article, written in the student homework book, only half a page, I read it immediately, almost no sentence is smooth. I knew that he could not enter any company, let alone become a backbone, he just used his imagination to shape a life for himself. This matter has been kept in my heart, and one day I remembered it and wrote this novel. Now I write slowly, and I don't care how long I have been writing.

Red Star News: What do you think of Chen Yong'an as a character?

Luo Weizhang: Chen Yong'an is certainly not the person in our unit thirty years ago, he has a richer and broader dimension. He has dreams in reality, but he does not look down on reality because of dreams. Reality is what he has to face and deal with, but dreams are also his right. I think the comments of the Manmatsuura Literature Prize are more appropriate, and the evaluation of the novel can also be seen as an examination of the character of Chen Yong'an.

Red Star News: Chen Yong'an left his hometown several times in his wandering long dreams. In your opinion, is the hometown of the spirit, or does it mean the dilemma of self-identification?

Luo Weizhang: The origin of the spirit is not necessarily the same, but what you said about the "dilemma of self-identity" is a good one. Struggling in difficult situations, struggling powerlessly, using long dreams to achieve, this is also a kind of life. Life is not just the part that can be seen and touched, it is not just the part of the obituary, there are many parts that are lurking, the parts that are lurking are more and broader, and the mission of the writer is to salvage out that part, the writer's ability, that is, the ability to dive.

Red Star News: Your pen presents the current situation of migrant workers and education. In your opinion, does a writer have an obligation to pay attention to reality?

Luo Weizhang: We can't call it an obligation, but it is more appropriate to call it our own job. Writers are writing about reality, and the difference is only in how to write, in what perspective and space setting to write. I also don't like to use character identities to define the category of novels, and the characters in all novels are first and foremost people, and they boil down to people.

Red Star News: You once said that writing is "finding a path to freedom for the mind", and now you have found this path?

Luo Weizhang: I am trying to find. Presented in the text of the novel, it is more and more clear to me that the whole essence of the novel genre is "up to me to decide." When I look at everything in the world with a sense of foresight, with a compassion after understanding, with respect for the big and the small, things become, how to structure the story, how to shape the characters, it depends on me. At this time, the norms and boundaries of the novel do not exist.

Red Star News: You think of Tolstoy the most, how did he influence your writing?

Luo Weizhang: Solemn. Tolstoy and Lu Xun, both of them, made me understand the solemnity and dignity. No matter what type of writer you are, solemnity should be the background. Solemnity cannot be disguised, and it cannot be disguised if you want to disguise. Some works, gags throughout, but let us read the real, powerful life, read the laughter and tears in life; some works, full of seriousness, but leak everywhere, showing humility and narrowness. A great writer like Tolstoy never regarded writing itself as the highest goal, thinking about life, and at the same time doing his best to make himself rich and rich, to become the glory of the world — not a small member of Vanity Fair.

Red Star News: You once said that because of the needs of work, you use WeChat, "but in the end, we only use WeChat as a text message, and almost do not brush the circle of friends." Has the fragmented information age had an impact on your writing?

Luo Weizhang: It is impossible to say that there is no impact, there is always so much information to fill you, and that information has nothing to do with your spiritual life, if there is, it is mostly a loss. All I have to do is stop loss. But to say that the fundamental impact is completely impossible. Establishing an autonomous writing position is the basic skill of a writer.

Red Star News reporter Peng Li

Edited by Duan Xueying

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