Ji Dongliang, vice chairman of the Ningxia Writers Association, has published novels such as "Running Life", "Rouge Lane", "Shangzhuang Ji", etc., short story collections "Ancestors PlantEd Trees", "Night Is Longer than Day", "The Distance Between Me and the World", "Roaring Night", essay collections "Talking to Wood", "Population Hand", "Left Hand Meritorious Name Right Hand Beauty" and so on. He has won the first prize of Ningxia Literature and Art Three times and won the title of "Virtue and Art Double Xin" literary and art worker in Ningxia. The essay collection "Talking to Wood" and the short story "Roaring Night" were shortlisted for the third and fifth Lu Xun Literature Awards, respectively. The novel "Shangzhuang Ji" won the 13th "Five One Project" Award for the Construction of Spiritual Civilization of the Central Propaganda Department and the "2014 China Good Book" and other awards.
China Youth Daily Client News (China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter only Hengwen) Ningxia Xihaigu, because of the history of the three counties of Xiji, Haiyuan, Guyuan and named, the former "bitter barren armor in the world", by the United Nations Food and Development Agency as one of the twenty-two "most unsuitable areas for human survival" in the world. This land has witnessed the opening of the curtain of the national "Three Wests" poverty alleviation strategy, witnessed the nearly 40 years of assistance, and witnessed a series of major national measures such as Fujian-Nanjing cooperation and poverty alleviation, which have achieved remarkable results, until 2020, Xihaigu has entered a well-off society.
Writer Ji Dongliang has lived in Xihaigu for more than thirty years, "I am well aware of the confusion and pain of the fathers and villagers in this land, and also know their struggles and pursuits, dreams and hopes." Later, although I left this land, I would go to Xihaigu several times a year to interview and investigate, have a deep understanding of its poverty alleviation policies, measures, and process, and also accumulated many real and vivid stories. It is full of people with stories, local people, grassroots cadres, poverty alleviation workers, volunteer teachers... It can be said that everyone has a history of poverty alleviation, which makes me have a strong sense of mission in writing. ”
Ji Dongliang's long-form reportage "Notes on Xihaigu" was published by Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House in February 2022. Qiu Huadong, secretary of the Secretariat of the China Writers Association, said at the seminar that Ji Dongliang lives in Xihaigu, and in the process of writing China's social change, he firmly grasped the important theme of poverty alleviation, and wrote very carefully and very prominently.
"I was very touched by the gesture of a novelist who went to write reportage about my hometown in a completely sinking way." What is sinking, He Xiangyang, director of the Innovation and Research Department of the China Writers Association, believes that it is to sink down, go deep into life, and take root in the people.
In the view of Zhang Li, a professor at the College of Literature of Beijing Normal University, "Notes on Xihaigu" is first of all written in the crowd, and at the same time has a general vision. Ji Dongliang's writing benefits from the local perspective in his writing, which makes his work convincing, with a local perspective, detailed narration and a grasp of time depth. "Overall, it refreshes our new understanding of the literary landscape, historical landscape and realistic landscape of Xihaigu, in addition to the writer's local perspective, what is more important is his understanding and writing of literature, the writer uses a small perspective to cut into a big theme, bit by bit recording the changes of Xihaigu in the past and present."
Yue Wen, a young critic and director of the Theory Department of the Innovation and Research Department of the China Writers Association, said that the book takes sociology as a method and presents a panoramic picture of the process of China's rural areas struggling out of the quagmire of thousands of years of poverty and giving them new brilliance, "It shows us how today's literature is out of the circle and how to break through the marginalized status." It introduces the path of drawing methods from various disciplines such as social sciences and history, and getting rid of some of the inherent paths to create a path that has both the power of thought and the beauty of sensibility. The Notes on Xihaigu opened up a complex texture of the agricultural production process under new historical conditions and left a voice for Xihaigu. ”
The scene of the seminar of "Notes on Xihaigu". (Courtesy of the organizer)
Source: China Youth Daily client