Young up-and-coming writer Lin Zhao won the "Most Promising Newcomer of the Year" at the 2021 Southern Literature Festival for his work "Liuxi" (Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, April 2020 edition).
On October 23, the "2021 Southern Literature Festival" sponsored by The Southern Metropolis Daily, the New Era Civilization Practice Center of Shunde District of Foshan City, the Publicity Department of the Shunde District Party Committee (District Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports Bureau), and the People's Government of Beijiao Town, Shunde District were held in the Concert Hall of Shunde Beijiao Cultural Center. The six awards of the high-profile "2021 Southern Literature Festival" - Outstanding Writer of the Year, Novelist of the Year, Poet of the Year, Essayist of the Year, Literary Critic of the Year, and Most Promising Newcomer of the Year were unveiled one by one, and more than 100 writers, scholars, literature lovers and local readers in Shunde were jointly presented.
Writer Lin Zhao
Lin Zhao was born in May 1984 in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. Graduated from the Department of Chinese. He has been engaged in real-life game design, sold flowers, and planted trees. Stream streams, her first novel, were selected for several good book lists after publication. The new feature-length "Tide Map" was first published in the fifth issue of Harvest in 2021, and the new book will be published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House.
*Award Speech:
Lin Zhao's shot was extraordinary. "Flowing Brook" is her debut novel, but she has no intention of joining any chorus of writing, choosing an adventurous, carnival discourse posture, but also wanting to create a personal secret of imagination and reality. Those restless childhood memories and adolescent emotions, after being amplified, illuminated, purified, and intertwined with the vast knowledge and experience, transform into a colorful vortex of consciousness. This is a difficult self-identification, unbearable reality, strange rhetoric, trying to hide her own way of telling in the story, after all, it is difficult to hide the sadness, emptiness and despair unique to a woman, as well as her care for love and vitality, and her yearning for spiritual excellence.
Lin Zhao's novel "Flowing Stream", Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, April 2020 edition
*Thank you note
Thank you to the jury for awarding me the Most Promising Newcomer of the Year Award, surprise, honor, trepidation. "Flowing Stream" is my first novel, although clumsy, it is of great significance to me, because of it, I have the privilege of meeting respectable and lovely teachers and friends, and I have the privilege of harvesting selfless and precious friendship from the literary community.
It just seems like it's just beginning. It was also in 2018 that for the first time, I gathered the courage and determination to try to look at the world with the eyes of a writer. Before that, everything was a jumping bead, and after that, the beads were obeyed and ruled by a silk thread as a string of beads. Writing is that thread. I regained the excitement that first shone through the pages of a book as a child, and then lost in a blind life day after day. Writing is an infinite long road, I have only a blood-filled apprentice heart, it fears experience, and at the same time looks at everything and feels new, it feels deeply happy because literature is ancient and infinite, because only literature can achieve the ultimate simplicity and the ultimate richness at the same time: just by a line of incantations, fictional time and space, a new meaning is born.
Thanks again to the jury. Thank you to my family. Thank you to everyone who gave me help and care. Without your love and dedication, there would be no lucky person today.
* Lin Zhao interview: Debut is the origin, is the starting point
Nandu: "Flowing Stream" is your first novel, please talk about its writing history. Why did you choose "Flowing Creek" as the title?
A: The first draft of "Flowing Creek" was written around 2005, lost at one point, and rediscovered in 2018. At that time, when the serious illness was just recovering, the cells and the will were renewed at the same time, and people had the courage to dare to do happy things. Writing is a pleasure. So I began to rewrite the first draft, and in the process I was encouraged and supported by my teachers and friends - that is a crucial force, the finger that pushed down the first domino, and I am eternally grateful.
At the end of 2018, "Flowing Creek" was completed. The title image comes from that simple, old metaphor: time is like flowing water.
Nandu: You graduated from Chinese department, but later worked in many jobs that had nothing to do with literature. What makes you pick up a pen to write?
A: Courage and confidence.
Nandu: Your novels involve hurtful and painful family relationships, and writing that confronts the family often requires greater courage and empathy from the writer. Can you talk about your childhood and your birth family? As a writer, how do you overcome the influence of your family of origin?
A: Stream is a fictional text that uses a first-person narrative, and the protagonist and the author are two different things. My childhood was called "responsive"; my original family cultivated and protected my empathy, my imagination, and built a foundation in me so that everything that can sprout today and tomorrow. Writing is the art of "giving new meaning to things", and by extension, we are always fighting for the control of life. "The influence of the original family" is a narrative, it is not welded to death, its light and dark tones depend on ourselves.
Nandu: In your reading, which works depicting family and kinship have touched you quite a bit?
A: Maybe it's Peter Pan. The three sisters and brothers are both family members and playmates, "family" indicates that they will never be separated, and "playmates" indicates that they feel sorry for each other. One day this incredibly strong little league ran away from home and ventured into a place that didn't exist, and everything was so ideal: thrill and security coexisted.
Nandu: This novel unfolds for us the very faint private memory of a young girl. Do you agree that Stream is a feminist work? After writing this novel, did you have a new understanding of "feminist writing"?
A: I am a woman, I write about female experiences, female characters, that's my intention.
Feminism opens up new perspectives for us to look outward and inward. The world is therefore different. Today, regardless of gender, we are students and beneficiaries of this new perspective.
Nandu: You show a wealth of naturalistic knowledge in the novel, the heroine Zhang Zao'er is a garden major, and your profile also has work experience such as "selling flowers and planting trees". Why are you interested in naturalism? How did it get into your writing?
A: Cities and nature have two different symbologies, and for a long time I turned a blind eye to the latter. Experienced naturalists are like hyper-sighted (auditors). One by one, they identified and pointed out the gold, and the obscured, more ancient natural world emerged. Nature, once experienced first-hand, can no longer be ignored: we have always been in it.
Nandu: You use "saltwater city" in the book to refer to Shenzhen, as the place where you were born and raised, what kind of city do you think Shenzhen is?
A: Brisk. special.
Nandu: There are many commentators who believe that "Flowing Creek" is a tribute to Nabokov's novel Lolita. What do you think about that? Who else has influenced your view of fiction?
A: Nabokov is a very unique writer, and if you want to make a six-dimensional radar map for human literature, Nabokov must be able to occupy a culmination. The charm of literature and art is that uniqueness, universality or the balance of the two are worthy of praise and pursuit.
I've also been influenced by Joyce, Woolf, Calvino.
Nandu: The poetry of language is the first impression that many readers have of you. What is the place that poetry occupies in your reading and writing? Is it possible to launch a poetry collection in the future? Are there any poets you particularly admire?
A: Poetry is high-speed, light-speed. Reading poetry is like being hit or even penetrated by a light click. I am a very lay reader of poetry, thanks to the poetry, thanks to the poets.
Nandu: As a debut film, how many points did you give "Flowing Stream"? In terms of writing subject matter and skills, what else do you think you can improve and change?
A: Debuts always have a special meaning for every writer, the origin, the starting point. From here, there is no end to learning.
Nandu: From the publication of your first work to the award, you have emerged in the literary world, discussed and paid attention to by everyone, how does it feel along the way? Can you reveal your next writing plans?
A: Grateful, trepidated. My new novel "Tidal Chart" will be published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House soon. (Interview/ Nandu reporter Zhu Rongting)