Cover news reporter Zhang Jie
Many people know Shi Zhongshan, all through his novels adapted from "The Years of Burning Passion" and "Happiness Like a Flower" and other film and television works. In fact, since Shi Zhongshan published his debut novel in the People's Liberation Army Literature and Art at the age of twenty, he has published more than 100 novels and novel collections, and is a senior contemporary writer.
In March 2022, Shi Zhongshan's latest novel, Ask the Vast Land, was launched by the People's Literature Publishing House. On the afternoon of March 20, the launch ceremony of the new book was held in the form of an online live broadcast. Shi Zhongshan shared the creative experience of this new work, and held a dialogue with the actress Sarina, who recently played the mother of the Zhou family in the hit TV series "The World of Man", the actress who was highly praised for her acting skills, the critic Meng Fanhua, and Shi Yifeng, winner of the Lu Xun Literature Award and deputy editor of Contemporary Magazine.
In "Ask the Vast Land", Shi Zhongshan writes a spy war story, but he does not focus on the ups and downs of the plot and the intricate character relationship like a typical spy war drama, but focuses on the contest between people and the fate of the characters in the background of the big era. Zang Yongqing, president of the People's Literature Publishing House, said that in recent years, the People's Literature Publishing House has been committed to excavating and launching excellent works of pure literature and top products of genre literature, and "Asking the Vast Land" combines the advantages of the two aspects, which is another excellent masterpiece in the current spy war novel, and provides many new elements different from similar works in the past, from the eve of the liberation of Northeast China to the reform and opening up, such a long time span has brought a heavy sense of history.
Critic Meng Fanhua has long been concerned about the current literary creation, and he commented that Shi Zhongshan is a very characteristic writer, whose creative volume is huge and rare among writers of the same generation. He agreed with the judgment that Shi Zhongshan's creation had the characteristics of genre novels, and stressed that there is no hierarchy between genre novels and serious literature, and in recent years, genre novels have been learning from various other novel writing methods, and provide a very good reference for serious literature.
The young writer Shi Yifeng, who is also the editor of The Contemporary magazine, is very familiar with Shi Zhongshan's novels and vividly summarizes the characteristics of them as "writing backwards". For example, Shi Zhongshan's Shi Guangrong is a combat hero and a lifelong warrior, but he does not write about the big thoughts and big events of this big man, but about the small events that Shi Guangrong deals with his daughter-in-law, children, and neighbors in his life. Writing the spiritual "big" of big people often has to be written from a small place. Shi Yifeng believes that writers must be able to write both vertical and horizontal, but also be able to write about daily life, which is also the characteristic of Shi Zhongshan's works, both with a big mind and a big perspective, as well as the ability to write highly life-like daily details.
(All pictures are provided by the People's Literature Publishing House)