Write about the joys and sorrows of the people
Wen 丨 Li Di
Li Di, born in 1950, a native of Beijing, is from Luannan, Hebei Province. A member of the Communist Party of China He graduated from Beijing Normal University High School in 1968. Later, he went to Yunnan to become a zhiqing. He has successively served as a creative member of the cultural department of a division in Yunnan, an editor of the Modern Department of the People's Literature Publishing House, and the editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine "Commodity and Quality". He began publishing in 1970. In 1984, he joined the Chinese Writers Association. He is the author of novels such as "Distant Betel Nut Village", "Wild Bee-infested Valley", novella "Here is the Forest of Terror", "The Sound of Black Forest Drums", "You Live and Die", "Code Name Spider", "Gun from Behind", "Leopard Hatch", "The Woman Knocking on the Door in the Evening", "The Last Movement of Sorrow", etc., and the long biography "Macau Xie Shuowen". "The Valley Infested by Wild Bees" won the third prize of the second national juvenile literary and artistic creation, "Leopard Hatch" won the second prize of the national excellent children's book, "The Woman Knocking on the Door in the Evening" won the first Golden Shield Literature Award, and "The Last Movement of Sorrow" won the Blue Shield Literature Special Award. His works have been translated into Russian, French and Korean and published abroad. Mr. Li Di passed away at 9:38 a.m. on 29 June 2020 at the age of 71 due to ineffective medical treatment. This newspaper would like to reprint the following in memory of Mr.
General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the opening ceremony of the Tenth National Congress of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Ninth National Congress of the Writers Association expressed the tasks and responsibilities, connotations and missions, directions and prospects of literature and art in the current era, and pointed out a truth for the vast number of literary and art workers: "The artistic life of all outstanding literary and artistic workers originates from the people, and all outstanding literary and artistic creations are for the people." ”
Combined with my own creative practice in recent years, I deeply feel that this truth is like light, illuminating yesterday and illuminating today, and will surely become the guiding light for the future itinerary of the vast number of literary and art workers.
The life of literature and art lies in the flesh-and-blood connection with the people.
The life of literature and art is the life of the people.
Only by going deep into life and taking root in the people can literary and artistic creation become the water of the source and the wood of the original.
Following this truth, I went to the Dandong Detention Center seven times, ate and lived with the police and detainees, and spent three Spring Festivals together. Those locked up here either get out alive or go to the execution ground. Life and death collide, love and hate are entangled, and real life makes the fiction pale and eternal theme vivid. I saw the police overdrawing their lives and fulfilling their duties, and I heard the criminals crying and weeping. I listened, I cried. Grieve their sorrows, rejoice their joys. Sometimes late into the night, I walked back to the cabin alone with my neck curled in the cold wind. Passing by a high wall with a power grid, the condescending sentry suddenly turned on the searchlight to illuminate me. Over time, they also got to know this old man who often walked at night with his waist hooked. Or turn on the lights, not to illuminate me, but to illuminate the road ahead for me. After experiencing this unforgettable life, I wrote a long reportage "The Story of Dandong Detention Center".
Following this truth, I went into Taklamakan three times and worked with Master Deng and his wife and children, a migrant worker who was waiting for the well house, to feel their hardships in the desert, in the days when there was no water and no electricity, watering trees, sand protection and road protection. Away from the people, dry to the yellow sand, a well room, two old couples. Suffering can be endured, and loneliness is the most difficult. It was fine to have the moon, the moonlight was the lamp. There is no moon but to talk in the dark. In a word, it is a matter of watering trees. Dreaming in the middle of the night is also a matter of watering trees. After experiencing this unforgettable life, I wrote the reportage "Well Room 004" to spread their voices and share their loneliness.
Following this truth, I crossed the seven beams and eight obstacles to GangouYi in Huining County, Gansu Province, and braved the scorching sun to pull grass in the cornfield with Dou Laohan from Zhongjiacha Village. Listen to him talk about the present and the past, and listen to him sing Qin. That hoarse and desolate Qin cavity, when I heard it, couldn't forget it, and it hurt to think of it. There is more ditch and less water here, except for loess, or loess. In the past, it was called GangouYi, and the people changed it to Gangouyi in order to seek bitterness and sweetness. Dou Laohan said: "The name has changed, Gan did not come, it is difficult to eat white steamed buns all year round." Not to mention, rotten mud houses, broken caves, digging a hole for lights. It was not until President Xi proposed targeted poverty alleviation and the sunshine of the party shone into the poor ravines that the people lived a good life. "After experiencing this unforgettable life, I wrote the reportage "Thirty Miles of that Dry Ditch and Ninety-Nine Obstacles" and published it in the People's Daily. Let more people know about Gangouyi, let more people care about the farmers' lives.
Following this truth, I went to Wuxi six times and interviewed more than 100 police officers. They are flying flags, they are magnificent poems. Our public security police have sacrificed every day and are bleeding all the time. They also have old mothers, they also have sweethearts, they also have life and death, they also have parting hatred. But when the people needed, when the alarm sounded, and they charged forward, they had no hesitation, facing the sharp knives of the gangsters and facing the bullets of evil. They are the protectors of the peace of the people, and they are the loveliest people in peacetime. Who can understand their tiredness and pain? After experiencing this unforgettable life, I wrote the long reportage "Iron Army, Relatives" and the collection of hundreds of short stories "Officer Wang Happy". Share their passion burning and write their sweet and sour bittersweet.
Following this truth, I went to Yangzhou three times to interview Chen Xianyan, a community policeman. He has been rooted in the community for 16 years, resolving contradictions at the grassroots level and sending warmth to thousands of households. The Ministry of Public Security awarded him a "heroic model of the first class" and the State Council awarded him a "national advanced worker"; he was elected a deputy to the National People's Congress twice and was elected as a member of the presidium; after serving as the deputy political commissar of the sub-bureau, he returned to the people's side and became a community policeman. I was touched and I admired. After experiencing this unforgettable life, I wrote a long reportage "How the Community Police Were Made - The Story of Chen Xianyan". After the publication, it received praise, and Gao Hongbo, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, read the poem after reading:
How to make a community policeman?
Chicken feathers are being picked up everywhere.
Great love cloud flying far away,
The widow cattle cultivate the land.
The police badge burns the heart warmly,
The sound of peace burst into tears.
Miscellaneous tastes and miscellaneous chen said the past,
"Three into" writer Pen Lixiong.
Following this truth, I went around Xuzhou Public Security. Here, the police badge is shining, the pride is like fire, and the director Chen Hui leads 10,000 iron troops to practice the sonorous oath of "people first", guard peace, and benefit the people. I interviewed hundreds of police officers. Criminal police officer Feng Donglei is known as the "terminator of serious cases", solving nearly a thousand cases a year. I went there, and I didn't expect it to be a schoolboy with glasses. Chen Sen, who had caught hundreds of fugitives in plainclothes over the years, thought he was a little old man selling eggs when I went to interview him. Zhang Xiaoling, a community police officer, loves to laugh. That day, Grandma Liu was confused, and a patrol policeman came to ask who was in the family, and she quickly pulled out a card and said, "This is my granddaughter!" The patrol officer took a look at it, and it was a police contact card. Dialing the phone, Officer Zhang said, "Come and pick up your grandmother and go home!" Xiao Ling smiled and said, "I'll come by rocket!" "From the eldest girl to the mother of the child, who has been a community policeman for more than 20 years, how many granddaughters has Xiaoling been?" She loves to chat with the old man and to see the smile on the old man's face. She couldn't watch people cry, and when people cried, her tears came down. She said: "The people's requirements are really not high, when he has a problem, you can sit down and listen to him, and he will remember your good." In the eyes of the people, the community police are the party and the government. Let's not dodge, let's take responsibility. "After experiencing this unforgettable life, I wrote "Facing the Spring Blossoms of Taihu Lake".
Looking back on the creative practice in recent years, I deeply feel that only by going deep into life and taking root in the people can literary and artistic creation always maintain youth.
This year, I'm over 68 years old, but I still feel young.
"All literary and art workers with ambitions and pursuits should follow the footsteps of the people, go out of every inch of the world, read the world, and let their hearts always beat with the hearts of the people." We must always put the people's warmth and happiness in our hearts, pour the people's joys and sorrows into our own pens, praise the struggle for life, and portray the most beautiful characters. ”
This is General Secretary Xi Jinping's hope for the vast number of literary and art workers, and it is also the direction of my future efforts.
(This article was originally published in the 2nd edition of Literature and Art Daily on December 14, 2016)
Li Di interview: Life is a treasure trove of writing
□ Yan Hui
Not long ago, the reporter followed a group of people who participated in the "Symposium on Writers' Fixed Points to Go Deep into the Life Scene and the Seminar on "The Story of the Dandong Detention Center" to the Dandong Detention Center. The conditions in the institute were very harsh, and the police offices and dormitories were on the dark and damp side, with a pungent smell wafting through the year round. The facilities inside were very old, and we had just walked out of the corridor of the detention center when suddenly a lampshade fell and shattered, but fortunately it did not hit anyone. It is under such conditions that Li Di excavated a great treasure, found the sincere feelings of human beings in the detention center, observed the historical development and progress of public security supervision work from ordinary small things, and wrote "The Story of Dandong Detention Center" that carries forward the healthy trend of society and praises the true feelings of the world. In the process of going deep into life, Li Di also formed a deep friendship with the cadres and policemen of the detention center, they said, Teacher Li, this is your home, I hope you will often come back to see!
Reporter: When I came to the Dandong Detention Center on the spot this time, I truly experienced everything described in the book. The conditions in the institute are unimaginable to ordinary people, and you have come here 7 times in two years and lived here for more than 7 months.
Li Di: Indeed, here is dilapidated, leaky, dark, damp, a wall skin because it may fall at any time and had to post a warning "do not come close, the consequences are at your own risk", more than 20 numbers are closed more than 500 men and women eat and drink Lasa, rushing into the nose is all human smell, and human smell is the most unscented. But the unimaginable touching stories that happen every day in this limited space have hit me with infinite force. The detention center is an "evil world" in the eyes of ordinary people, but this is not the case. Unlike prisons, inmates who enter prison sooner or later have to come out and survive the known sentence to regain their freedom. Those held in detention centers are either released or taken to the execution ground. Little-known stories of life and death, love and hate are staged here, which can be said to be excellent material for writing. I am here to go deep into the period, often moved by the real story that happened here to tears, tossing and turning, as a writer, what else do you hesitate? So I decided to come back and record what I saw and felt. Later, the China Writers Association formulated a system for writers to go deep into life at fixed points, and listed me as one of the first batch of 19 writers in the country in 2010 who went deep into life at fixed points, which gave me all-round support and strengthened my confidence. Therefore, I went to the Dandong Detention Center seven times, during which I spent two Spring Festivals and one "May Day" with the cadres and policemen and detainees to collect stories in depth.
Reporter: You are writing novels, and more than a dozen books that have been published, including "The Woman Knocking on the Door in the Evening", "Blood Orchid", "Leopard Hatch", etc. are all novels.
Li Di: When I first came to the Dandong Detention Center, my purpose and my plan to report to the China Writers Association were to write a novel, and even had a title. But later, as I continued to deepen my life in "Dan Kan", I changed my original intention. Because, I met a group of good people, a group of humane kindness and integrity, hard work and even bear the burden of humiliation but laugh instead of complaining! It's hard for me to leave. Also because I face the gaze of hundreds of male and female detainees who are eager for freedom and eager to live, eager to treat them as human beings, and hear their regretful sorrow, pain, grievance, sorrow, sorrow, mixed feelings and sorrows, I can't bear it! Living sins and punishments, real things and people, do you still use me to fiction again? If I don't use my real name to write down all this, I'm sorry for "Dan looking", sorry for "Dan looking" people, and sorry for my own eyes. So I decided to try reportage, the most direct way to write "Dan Kan" stories. It's a challenge for me, so it's easier to write.
The next step is how to live a solid life. I think I'm going to take it, I'm going to learn, including learning from criminals, because they've taught me about the alternative life. Well, then don't burden others, don't make people helpless. In the first place, going deep into life should not cause trouble for the interviewee. As a grassroots unit, it is a matter of "not being patient" to cause them trouble. I asked Director Dai Xiaojun if he could find me a room in the detention center, preferably next door with the prisoners. Director Dai smiled, the house has, it is too cold and there is no hot water, you are sixty or more can't do it! I said "it's all right". That's it. I stayed in the detention center, and there were prisoners asleep next door to the hut, and the scenery outside the house was also divided by iron windows. Every day, I share a pool and toilet with these prisoners who are serving sentences. Three meals a day and mixed in the police pile, what they eat I eat. Circling around his feet were the N kittens adopted by the institute. Well, now there is a lot of time to soak between the police and the detainees, to become a pickle pickled in this sauce jar, and after a long time, it will pickle the taste and lift the pen - human nature, conscience, duty, love.
Reporter: This book is very readable, and some places even use suspenseful techniques. How do you think you write documentary literature differently from when you write fiction?
Li Di: There is no fundamental difference, there needs to be a life. Without life, completely dependent on editing, I think it is difficult to come up with good things. Even if it is a myth like "Journey to the West", you go and turn it over, full of paper life! Documentary literature is more appealing in reflecting people and things in real life more realistically. But a real good story, if you want to move people and achieve the purpose of writing documentary literature, you must first let people love to see, can see, and can see. Writers who write novels write documentary literature, in addition to the undesirable fiction, all the expressive techniques in good novels should be better possessed! I am most afraid of seeing things and not seeing people!
Reporter: Reading this work, the most mentioned word is moving, in the impetuous moment, how do you do it?
Li Di: In these days and nights in the detention center, I saw Dai Shou running around breaking the routine so that the prisoner sentenced to death met with the child he had never met, the father and son could not be separated from death; the lone female prisoner missed the stray dog she had adopted for 7 years and even had the idea of dying, and the deputy director Wang Jingjian drove dozens of miles to take the puppy to the detention center and raise it in the detention center, and the female prisoner cried out and cried out to the bodhisattva; Wei Hong summoned the prisoner Xi Bao's desire to remarry, and bitterly persuaded the woman. Finally, the woman agreed to come to pick her up on time on the morning of the release. For this agreement, the two big men were indomitable in the cold wind and finally waited for the "happy yellow handkerchief"; Zhang Li had been a criminal policeman, hated the criminal, and called the criminal a "scum" with her mouth shut, but she actually withstood the pressure of heaven to recover the money that should not be punished for the female prisoner; Chen Yuan held the hand of the discipline tightly before being tied to the execution ground and said, Thank you for taking care of me like a relative for two years, I owe you too much, I can't go over there to ask the king of Yan to bless you Before Zhongshanlin was shot, he requested that the only 300 yuan be transferred to the child of the prisoner Zhang Zhe to pay the tuition fee... How can this not be touching?
What made me most memorable was that when I saw a criminal from a teacher being escorted to the execution ground, Director Dai sat alone in his office, like a stone statue shrouded in thick smoke, motionless and silent. Just like that, one cigarette is finished, and another one is connected...
Reporter: During the interview here, I also noticed that Deputy Director Han Feng began to try to write and opened a blog under your influence; Lu Chunzi, a police officer, also became increasingly interested in literature under your leadership, and became a correspondent and photographer in the institute... This is also the harvest of your fixed point to go deep into life.
Li Di: It's a big gain. The fixed-point style should be really deeply penetrated, and the interviewee will communicate with the writer. In addition, we as writers have to do what we can to help them do something. For example, here I write newsletters for the detention center, talk to the inmates, share their troubles and sorrows, and give them the respect they deserve. After a long time, they also recognized me as a friend, rushed to help me wash my clothes, and sent me to the last gate when I left. In this process, I have accumulated a lot of creative materials, which can be said to help others and help myself at the same time.
During the fixed-point period, I accumulated 5 large books of text, hundreds of photos, and many recordings of interviewing staff and detainees. In order to investigate the details of the food, I even interviewed the kitchen master. During my two years in the detention center, I tasted the sweetness of going deep into life at a fixed point, and I will continue to dig up the stories there and present them to readers in the future.
Reporter: Some critics say that "The Story of Dandong Detention Center" has successfully shaped a group of correctional policemen, who are very cute, each with a distinct personality and a prominent spirit. In the interview, I listened to Wang Jing, deputy director of "Dan Kan" and one of the third "My Favorite Ten People's Police", and said very sincerely that the stories in the book deeply touched and inspired them, making them love their work more and feel the responsibility they shouldered. I also heard the cadres and policemen say that a good teacher like Li Di is the most respected and beloved good writer in our whole institute. If he doesn't come for a while, we will miss him.
Li Di: Indeed, we didn't distinguish each other, we all became brothers and sisters, and we thought of each other after not seeing each other for a while. Every time I go to Dandong, I always have to bring a large box of Beijing specialties, like going to visit relatives. Director Dai even introduced his good friends who worked in the local area to me, and made me a good friend with them. As for me, I also brought my friends who worked in the media and even as a painter to Dandong, so that they could become good friends, promote "Dan Kan", and paint portraits for the police. What's the secret when everyone becomes good friends?
Life is a well, away from the well, there is no water to drink. The theme of public security is my favorite. Writers are not a panacea, they can be wiped anywhere, so it is difficult to write more weighty works. With your love, or with the love you have generated from life, and then sink into the deep well of life to dig, it is possible to find water and drink water!
(This article was originally published in the 1st edition of "Literature and Art Daily" on September 28, 2011)
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