China Youth Daily Client News (China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Jiang Xiaobin) Shi Yifeng's latest long story "Crossing the Ocean to Send You" published by the People's Literature Publishing House recently held a premiere ceremony online.
The post-70s writer Shi Yifeng won the 7th Lu Xun Literature Award for his novel "There Is No Chen Jinfang in the World", and in recent years, "Eye of the Earth", "History of the Mind", "Born by Life" and so on have also won the attention of the literary community and the love of readers. This time he explored new themes, and for the first time he dropped his brushstrokes on the "aborigines" of Beijing's hutongs.
The protagonist Nadou has been living in a bungalow with his grandfather since he was a child. The sudden death of his grandfather made the grief in his heart unable to be relieved, and at this time, he accidentally found a "foreign body" that did not seem to belong to his grandfather in the ashes. What is it? Why is it here? He decided to find out. Who knows, this is just the beginning. As Master Li, the furnace worker, said, everything in this world is tied together! When the sound of albanian trumpets came from the mobile phone video, when Fa Xiao came from the other side of the ocean with new clues, Na Dou decided to pack his bags and go to the American continent for his grandfather...
Shi Yifeng
The two and a half small bungalows in the hutong and the starling yellow bird hanging at the door of the bungalow constitute the tone of "Crossing the Ocean to Send You", but Shi Yifeng's vision is far more than this. By exploring the experiences of two generations of grandparents, the novel reflects the historical changes of up to half a century, from the grandfather's defense of the country and the transformation of the factory, to the grandchildren's crossing the ocean and the interconnection of the world, a completely different but mutually supportive life, which has opened up the time and space scale of the novel. What remains unchanged is that Chinese blood is thicker than water and endlessly alive.
Li Jingze, a well-known critic and vice chairman of the China Writers Association, said that there are very few works in contemporary Chinese literature that really write about the relationship between ancestors and grandchildren. Shi Yifeng wrote about the communication of the worldviews and values of the two sides as two complete lives; the relationship between two men, one old and one young, sometimes even like brothers. Li Jingze especially praised the portrayal of grandpa's old branch in the novel, this character is "reasonable" and "wants a face", and the two things added together show the "style" of the character, which is also the traditional Chinese "style".
Whether in reality or literature, "Beijing" has always been the label of Shi Yifeng. His style is very "Beijing", the language is more "Beijing", there is a continuation of the tradition represented by Mr. Lao She, and many people also regard him as one of the representatives of the "New Beijing Flavor Novel" after Wang Shuo.
The "newness" of Shi Yifeng's works lies in diversity. The new generation of Beijing youth in "Across the Ocean to Send You" is looking at and exposing to the outside world in a different way than their predecessors. It can be said that the caged bird and the sea can be seen as a side of reality, and sometimes the most local and traditional elements will be transformed into trends and fashions, which is also the background of "national tide" becoming a popular cultural keyword in recent years.
Li Hongqiang, editor-in-chief of the People's Literature Publishing House, said: "Crossing the Ocean to Send You" is written in a light-hearted, cheerful and easy to read, centered on an accident, vertically wrote about the inner world and spiritual communication of three generations, and horizontally wrote about the personal insistence and home-country feelings of several young people in Beijing and overseas, which not only has the humorous and atmospheric background of Beijing's novels, but also writes the personality of a new generation of young people.
Source: China Youth Daily client