In order to create "You are in the plateau", Zhang Wei went to the deep mountains and old forests to collect wind, and was almost eaten by wolves

In August 2011, the winning works of the 8th Mao Dun Literature Award were announced. After fierce competition, Zhang Wei's "You are in the plateau", Liu Xinglong's "Skywalker", Mo Yan's "Frog", Bi Feiyu's "Tuina", and Liu Zhenyun's "One Sentence top 10,000 Sentences" stood out among 178 works, won the 8th Mao Dun Literature Award, and took 500,000 yuan in prize money.

Among the 5 award-winning works, Zhang Wei's "You are in the plateau" is very eye-catching.

First of all, it's a super-long novel. The book is divided into 39 volumes, grouped into 10 units, with a total of 4.5 million words, which is the longest award-winning novel in the history of the Mao Dun Literature Award, with more words than the four great works of "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin" and "Journey to the West" combined.

Second, the novel received a lot of votes. At that time, there were 61 judges who participated in the final round of voting of the 8th Mao Dun Literature Award, and "You are in the Plateau" received 58 votes, the highest number of votes in the five winning works. The lowest-rated "One Sentence Top 10,000 Sentences" received only 45 votes. This shows that "You are in the plateau" can win the Mao Dun Literature Award, which is the expectation of the public.

Finally, Zhang Wei's journey of creating "You are on the Plateau" has a tortuous and thrilling story.

The whole book "You are in the plateau" takes the story of the geological team member Ning Jia as the main line, interspersed with the stories of more than 50 people such as Meizi, Lü Zhi, Ning Ke, Zhuang Zhou, Wu Zhao, Lin Ruo, Xiao Bai, Fourth Brother, Xiao Xiao, Porcelain Eye, and Mr. Three, and carefully creates a novel world with many characters and colorful colors. In order to create this novel, Zhang Wei formulated a writing plan as early as the 1980s, and spent a lot of time and energy to go deep into folk experience and examine life.

Zhang Wei not only went to the most prosperous and lively big cities, but also to the poorest and most backward remote mountain villages. He needs to accurately record the most real living conditions of people in different regions and different classes, rather than "visiting here" in a flashy way, as Zhang Wei himself said, "The pointer of a writer's heart must always point to the lives of people living at the bottom."

As we all know, Zhang Wei is a Shandong writer. His birthplace, Longkou City, and his native Qixia City, are both located on the Jiaodong Peninsula. Therefore, he focused on the Jiaodong Peninsula. Jiaodong Peninsula is located in the Jiaodong Economic Circle, with strong economic strength, including Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai and other large cities. However, in the 1980s, there were still many places in the mountains and forests, which were not yet developed.

One year, when Zhang Wei was collecting wind in the Jiaodong Peninsula area, he went to the deep mountains and old forests. At this time, the sky unexpectedly snowed heavily, trapping him in a dilapidated old house in the mountains for a day and a night. The old house had neither food to eat nor firewood to keep warm, and it was cold and hungry. Many years later, in an interview with Chen Huawen, a reporter for China News and Publications, Zhang Wei said with some trepidation: "If my friends had not come in time, [I] would have either frozen to death and starved to death, or had been eaten by wolves." ”

More difficult treks run through the entire writing process.

He shut himself in an old building and threw himself into writing. In this state of writing, eating seems to be a superfluous thing. He minimizes the time spent on meals, divides the meals into 7-day portions, packs them separately and puts them in the refrigerator; when it is necessary to eat, heat them in a steamer. He eats quickly. Good friend Zhao Jianping once witnessed him "filling the stomach like a duck".

Obviously, this way of eating has no "color and flavor" to speak of, and the biggest function is only to maintain a person's living state.

Due to the excessive overdraft of his life, Zhang Wei's physical condition deteriorated, and the invasion of illness became a natural thing. He fainted several times and was taken to the hospital for treatment, and the longest coma lasted more than 10 minutes. As he lay in his hospital bed, his mind was racing, "When will I get out of bed and take a small step?" ”

From the beginning of his work in 1988 to the publication of "You in the Plateau" in 2010, "Wasteland Chronicle (Part 1)", Zhang Wei spent 22 years to complete this 39-volume huge production.

In the past 22 years, all aspects of Chinese society have undergone earth-shaking changes - when Zhang Wei wrote the first line of "You are in the plateau" on the manuscript paper, most Chinese still used letters to communicate; when "You are in the plateau" ninth "Wasteland Chronicle (Part 1)" was published in "Chinese Writers", people were already reading articles, listening to music, and enjoying film and television dramas on their smartphones. The literary genres in the literary world alone have gradually changed from the scar literature and reflective literature that arose in the 1980s to the later reform literature, root-seeking literature, "leper" literature, absurd literature, neo-realist literature, avant-garde literature... Various literary genres emerge in an endless stream, "you sing and I appear, each leading the way for three or five years." However, the emergence of "You in the Plateau" still shocked the literary world and became a landmark event in the cultural world in 2010.

Tie Ning, chairman of the China Writers Association and contemporary writer, commented: "This work has left a deep impression on the contemplation of the development of mankind, the inquiry of moral conscience, the inquiry into the fate and spiritual depths of the people at the bottom, and the concern for the balance of natural ecology. ”

The famous writer Han Shaogong commented: "Zhang Wei is an excellent literary long-distance runner, he ran more than 10 million words with his heart, which is unprecedented, his adherence to land, history, culture and spirit touched readers, and it is also an example for me to learn." ”

At the beginning of the 21st century, the sales of novels were shrinking, but the tome "You in the Plateau" was very popular in the book market, and before winning the Mao Dun Literature Prize, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies, so that for a long time after winning the award, the book was in a state of shortage.

This also shows that people still maintain a high degree of acceptance of excellent novels.