The young Mongolian writer Sonam Tsering is an authentic herder and a brilliant novelist, he writes novels while herding, and he opens the door that we have not opened along the passage we have not walked. Ten nomadic stories, ten lifes in difficult situations that swim against the current, and see a world that is different from ours. A few days ago, the publication of Sonnen's short story collection "On the Wasteland" has attracted attention. The work revolves around herders who have been accompanied by horses all their lives, and the patrol teams that pursue poachers, reflecting the real life of contemporary herders in the depths of the grassland, showing the impact and changes brought by the rapid development of the times to the personality, spiritual connotation and living habits of traditional herders, and constructing a unique novel world.
I was told I had seen him at Sinhadnaden. In the early spring of last year, I went to Sinhadnadon for the first time to look for him, and to no avail. That time, he obviously appeared on the street, but in the blink of an eye, he disappeared without a trace, and it was clear that he had slipped away after seeing me. He's there again this year, and there must be a reason. Giro knew about it. He also accompanied me last year, and there was no such thing as an outrageously old jeep, and we rode for three days on horseback. In the meantime, the warrior's flared up, and it played with its temper, forcing me to lead it on foot. Later we rode together, but within a few hours, Giro was upset with his horse and drove me down. I walked about a hundred kilometers that time. I tried a few times, and I was so frightened by the temper of the "warrior" that I took a few reins and cursed a lot of ugly words, and I told it that there would be a chance to clean up after you. But after that, I even lost the opportunity to look at it again, to touch it, to walk with it. In the town of Huare, a herd of cattle surrounds the "warrior", and then a cow horn easily pierces its belly. When the only veterinarian in the town said he was powerless and could not be saved, I watched it fall painfully in the alkaline field outside the town. It had a hole in its abdomen, and its internal organs were squeezed out of the hole a little, forming a gray balloon. It narrowed its eyes and stopped breathing, and then hundreds of vultures suddenly appeared in the sky and swarmed, calmly and coldly dividing it. I stood there all the time, watching the whole process, watching the vultures eat it away little by little, and then fly with its breath and flesh to the distant sky.
Sonam Tsering's new work "On the Wasteland", a total of 10 short and medium stories, including "In Sinhanadon", "Cow Pen", "I Am a Wrangler", "Texas Store", "All is Just a Voice", "What to Do Next", "Vulture", "Original", "Between the Mountains", "On the Wasteland", all written about qinghai pastoral life. 10 nomadic stories, 10 kinds of life in difficult situations, and see a different world than ours.
The back cover of the book has a recommendation: "Let's redefine why people and being alive are at the center of the story." This kind of writing re-corrects a certain kind of writing bias. This is not an exaggeration at all. Sonam cairang writes about the life away from the city, but what the reader sees is a kind and full story, telling the entanglements that may occur everywhere in the world, and communicating with the daily confusion of you and me.
In the view of the writer Guo Jianqiang, from sonam's novels, you can smell the taste of Aitmatov, Babel, and Hemingway. In the final analysis, It is a new grassland novel in Chinese literature, tough but soft, familiar and defamiliarizing. The characters, plot, language, and rhythm show an excellent sense of melting and completion, adding a different color to contemporary literature and having a high degree of recognition.
For the writing style, Sonam Cairang said: "When writing, I am more in reading, reading classics, reading favorite books, reading and reading again. I'm a bookworm. Before writing every day, read a book for half an hour, write for an hour, and read for another hour. Some books are read for the first time, as if nothing is left, and then read again, I feel that I have read them, as if I have read them, as if I have seen scenes and characters, which are extremely familiar. ”
In 2009, Sonam worked for a modern sculpture company in Beijing, knocking on sculpture models, welding, polishing, polishing... He has done the works of several famous modern sculptors. When he wasn't working overtime at night, he wrote "On the Wasteland" (the title at the time was "In the Angleng Prairie") in the small bathroom of his dormitory. Sonam let him place a small stainless steel desk in this abandoned small bathroom, which he designed and welded, and the polished silver table top was engraved with several words: Time pays off!
The first draft of "On the Wasteland" was handwritten, written in a black-skinned sketchbook, and Sonam had only been writing it for two months to complete the draft, when it was already winter. Sonam Cairang recalled: "That year during the Spring Festival, I did not go home, stayed in the factory, and climbed the roof Chinese New Year's Eve night to watch the fireworks in beijing, which was really wonderful and unforgettable." By the spring, I had revised the novella and transcribed it in another of the same sketches. Then, during a break, I took the work to a well-known magazine. I lingered there for a long time without the courage to go in, and almost turned my head to leave. It was the desire to publish the text that stopped me, and I finally went in hard, not remembering how many floors it was, and I didn't know which door to enter. Exceptionally quiet in the corridor. Just then, a man came out of the room with two large glass doors, a middle-aged man with a bald head, and he asked me what was wrong, and I said to contribute. His eyes were fixed on the book in my hand. He said without a doubt, give it to me. I handed him the book, and he opened it and flipped it over, and looked at me again, making me move my steps with some inferiority. Walking out of the newsroom, I felt as if I had collapsed and sat on the sidewalk for a long time. In fact, the moment I gave him the manuscript, I regretted it, and I already had a premonition of its fate. My confidence in this work was suddenly turned upside down, and I seemed to let go of it before I first knew it. Later, as I expected, the novel sank into the sea, and I was relieved. ”
But Sonnen Didn't give up, and he kept rewriting On the Wasteland. He said: "I feel that despite the many problems, it is still a novel with merit. So I had to rewrite and revise it over and over again, rewriting almost every sentence in the way I felt was most suitable, and after a while I felt that it was wrong, and then I wrote it again..." Until "On the Wasteland" was published in Harvest magazine.
Writer Wu Yue believes that most of Sonam Tse-rang's novels are written about the stories of alpine grassland pastoral areas, but this does not make readers feel distant. On the contrary, the writer has a strange relevance and subtle capture power, so that the human nature of the stranger is laid out and displayed in the vault universe; and those relatively heterogeneous cultural landscapes are settled and comfortable through his chic but precise Chinese. "Sonnen Cairang is a writer who will become a big climate."
However, Sonam Cairang felt that he had stepped out of a creative trap, and the feeling of "writing like this is actually not very meaningful" was gone, but he felt that he had entered a larger trap, but he had just started, and he did not touch that kind of barrier, but it was absolutely there, very real. "It seems that I can only break this circle by filling it up, it is like a balloon, I have to blow it up first, and then it swells, full, rises, and then breaks." It's a joy to feel like this, at least I know I'm going to keep doing it within its limits. Perhaps, at the end of the novel with the same title, "On the Wasteland," we can glimpse the beginnings of it: "When I came, there were six people, full of vitality; when I left, I became five people, dead." Ginger stayed on the prairie, the big world he longed for... We took a detour to Nakanoden and climbed mount Ao Bao. In front of Ao Bao, we knelt down and prostrated our heads. Qiluo Ming whimpered and wept, and the strong east wind dispersed his wailing, causing him to crawl forward like a dog. Nanshga also wept, softly and silently in tears. It was the first and last time I saw him in tears. As we got into the car again and headed for our home in the distance, I said let's read a poem, the one that Ginger often reads. Therefore, we shouted loudly and hysterically together: Qinghai Changyun Dark Snow Mountain, isolated city looking at Yumen Pass..." (Reader's Daily All-Media Reporter He Jian)
Editor: Wang Xin Responsible Editor: Dong Xiaoyue Review: Zhou Hua