The Surging News reporter Luo Xin
On October 26th, the Sino-Portuguese Literary Exchange Conference "Diversified Writing, Common Interests", co-sponsored by the Shanghai Writers Association and the Consulate General of Portugal in Shanghai, was held at the Shanghai Writers Bookstore. This is a literary exchange meeting that takes place both offline and online. Because of the epidemic, Portuguese children's literature writer Isabelle Minhos Martins and Portuguese novelist, essayist, playwright and poet José Luis Pesato could not come to the bookstore, but they still launched a wonderful dialogue with Chinese children's literature writer Yin Jianling and Chinese novelist Lu Nei through the way of "communication on the clouds" to share the beauty of literature with readers.
Portugal is on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, and China is on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, which are very far apart. This reminded Wang Wei, vice chairman of the Shanghai Writers Association, of a song that Shanghai sang more than twenty years ago, with a sentence: "The earth is a beautiful circle, I am in the east and you are in the west." Sometimes it feels far away, and you come to me in one fell swoop. ”
"It's like today, we came together through literature and the Internet." Wang Wei said that just as the theme of the exchange meeting, "Diverse Writing, Common Interests", we are people from different cultural backgrounds, and we use different languages when describing the same things, but at the same time, as human beings, we have common things, such as life, life, love, nature, peace and so on.
Wang Wei, vice chairman of the Shanghai Writers Association
Consul General of Portugal in Shanghai Isaba
Isaba, Consul General of Portugal in Shanghai, also said affectionately: "I believe that literature has many kinds and many languages, and I believe that the theme of today's dialogue is our common interest and direction: we all hope to discover a new world through reading, and to see new stories and new people through reading." Because of the pandemic, we can't cross borders, but we can explore our common interests by writing. ”
On October 26th, the Sino-Portuguese Literary Exchange Conference "Diversified Writing, Common Interests", co-sponsored by the Shanghai Writers Association and the Consulate General of Portugal in Shanghai, was held at the Shanghai Writers Bookstore. Full text of the scene courtesy of the photo: event organizers
Through their works, get close to their literary world
The seminar began with a reading of the works of four writers. The text Isabel chose stems from a picture book story she created that explores topics related to "death." "Instead of mentioning the word 'death,' the book uses the word 'disappear', in a more euphemistic way, to tell children and other readers about the assumptions about 'disappearing.'"
Isabelle Minoz Martins
Isabelle said that her writing philosophy is to tell how she sees the world and the problems that are happening in the world, "I hope to communicate with the reader through the work, not simply to show the work, but to integrate the reader into the writing." My work is not only aimed at children, but also at readers of different races and ages. ”
Yin Jianling
Yin Jianling chose the text of "Paper Man", written at the age of 28, which is a novel about girls' sexual growth. "A girl will have a lot of subtle life experiences in the process of growing up, but Chinese has always been secretive about sex education." She once thought that the novel had Chinese characteristics and did not want the book to be translated into a foreign language many years later, and friends from other countries told her that the book was very resonant, "A British friend said, although I grew up in The Uk, we are all human. It is these words that made me firm in one of my creative pursuits, that is, to always care about people's hearts and emotions. ”
Jose Luis Pesato
José was born in a place called Gaveias in the Alentejo region of Portugal, and he loved it deeply and wanted to tell the scenes and stories of his hometown through novels. The text he chose to read aloud this time was the Book of the Sacrifice of the Father, which he had written at the age of 21. In the sad text, he revealed his inner world after the death of his father.
Inside the road
The text That Lu nei chooses to read aloud comes from his novel "The MistWalker," published last year. "This novel is about my youth, about twenty years old. At that time, a large number of rural young people emerged with dreams in relatively developed coastal cities, which I think was the 'great navigation era' within China. They have realized their dreams in Shanghai and Guangzhou, but there are inevitably pains. ”
In writing, what they care about most
Coincidentally, there were two Portuguese writers, two Chinese writers; two male writers and two female writers; two children's literature writers, and two novelists. Their writing presents a rich face and different temperaments, but they can also see their common concern for the individual, the human heart, the time, and the existence of life.
Lu Nei said that from his birth to the present decades, the changes in China and the situation of small people in this change have always been his focus. "When we write, we present not only beautiful words, but also the problems of history, the problems of the times, the problems of reality, which are very complicated."
"In my writing journey, I have tried a variety of different subjects, and I like to try new things. What has always really stimulated my creative interest is my exploration of people's inner world. Just now Lu Nei said 'little people', I am most interested in the hearts and emotions of ordinary people and ordinary children in different times and encounters. Yin Jianling said.
For now, José is most interested in two topics, one about facts and reality, he tries to read a large number of historical documents, memoirs and other materials, through the intersection and support between different texts, to explore the truth behind it; the other is about identity, about "who I am". "I talk about where I was born, where I grew up in a lot of books. Finding my identity through my writing, finding the original source, is also a topic that is very important to me. ”
Isabelle is most interested in the things around her, about nature, about relationships, and so on. "I also hope that through writing, I can arouse everyone's attention and sensitivity to the things around them." On the other hand, one topic I'm interested in may be 'time', and I believe this topic is also of equal concern to a large number of writers. ”
What can we read as children
Looking back on how they embarked on the path of literature, all four writers invariably mentioned reading as children and an impulse to express from the heart.
In fact, almost everyone's reading begins as a child. In recent years, the topic of "what children can read" has also attracted more and more social attention. In Isabelle's view, writing is a way of communicating with the reader, there is no need to limit the content, for some specific topics can be through some euphemisms, "such as talking about 'death', we can tell abstract content in a concrete way like storytelling." ”
Yin Jianling was deeply impressed. "In fact, I think children can read anything, and some adults are overly nervous. Children's literature can express any subject, including death, war, suffering, or sex, and there are no themes that children cannot understand. Because children are born artists and philosophers, they have ways of understanding and expression that adults do not expect. Of course, children's literature has a certain art of expression, so I agree with Isabelle's use of concrete stories to express abstract concepts. She uses 'disappear' to mean 'death' so that children understand life but will not be hurt. ”
"It's good to have children trust in children's literature writers." Lu Nei said that as parents, we will find that children grow up very fast, you feel that you should not talk to your children today, maybe next year, he/she will already know everything, "we should believe in writers, especially children's literature writers, they are decent people." 」 Because you don't speak, other people around your child will speak, and if you avoid this way, others may also influence your child in a violent way. ”
Ruo Ze also believes that deliberately avoiding certain topics does not solve the problem, we should think about how to discuss the natural existence of death and sex in a way that children can accept, "Many times adults also underestimate our children, and may forget what it is like when we are children." In fact, children know a lot of things, and their ability to accept is very strong. ”
Wang Wei said that Chinese literature lovers and writers are very concerned about Portuguese literature. "Although Portugal is a country with a small population, in literature it seems to us to be a big country. Some works by Portuguese writers, such as pessoa and Salamago, have a large readership in China. Through such exchanges today and in the future, we will surely let more Portuguese writers and works be known to Chinese readers, and at the same time, we will also let China's outstanding writers and their important works spread to Portugal. ”
Finally, Wang Wei quotes the last sentence of Isabel's "The Passage of Time": "Although time has been passing, true friends have always been there." ”
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Jia
Proofreader: Yan Zhang