On April 25th, the "A Beautiful Talk - Zhang Kangkang Literature Memoirs" New Book Sharing Meeting was held in Guangzhou Library.
"Hello everyone! I'm from Cantonese!" At the beginning of the sharing meeting, the writer Zhang Kangkang greeted everyone warmly in Cantonese, and suddenly narrowed the distance with everyone, and the applause and laughter on the scene sounded. Next, Zhang Kangkang and everyone exchanged views on traditional Chinese culture, Chinese literature, online literature, and reading for all. Some readers said on the spot that they wanted to become such a person as Zhang Kangkang, and Zhang Kangkang immediately said after hearing it: "You don't want to be me, you want to become yourself!"
"Zhang Kangkang's Literary Memoirs" collects Zhang Kangkang's memories and reflections on literary creation, as well as his reflections on life, society and history on the road of literary creation. Zhang Kangkang said that the memoir is a review of the relationship between the individual and literature.
Zhang resistance
Born in Hangzhou in 1950, his ancestral home is Xinhui, Guangdong, and he has been engaged in professional literary creation for 40 years. He has published more than 8 million words of novels and essays, and published nearly 100 kinds of literary monographs. Representative works: novels "Invisible Companion", "Chi Tong Dan Zhu", "Love Gallery", "As a Woman", "Zhang Kangkang Self-Selected Collection" 5 volumes, etc. He has won the "National Excellent Short Story Award", "National Excellent Novella Award", "The Second Lu Xun Literature Award" and so on. A number of works have been translated into English, French, German, Japanese and Russian and published overseas. He has successively served as a member of the 10th, 11th and 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and vice chairman of the 8th, 9th and 10th Chinese Writers Association. In 2009, he was appointed counselor of the State Council.
Interview
Record the 40 years of reform and opening up from a literary point of view
Yangcheng Evening News: What are the characteristics of the "Literary Memoirs" published this time?
Zhang Kangkang: This book is a summary and record of my literary creation for most of my life. Most of my previous work was novels and prose essays, but this book is a record of my view of literature that I have written down over decades of literary road, recording my literary growth path; and there are a large number of interviews, which are local interviews at that time, so they are real, and there are traces of the time in it. It has certain value for literary history and is a valuable material for the study of writers. The articles in this memoir, the earliest written in the late 1970s, and the latest as of 2018, are just the records of the 40 years of reform and opening up, and these articles can be said to record the social hotspots, ideological trends and important social changes of reform and opening up from a literary point of view. For example, the first article in it was the Shenzhen manuscript bidding event, when the reporter interviewed, I recorded the thoughts at that time. If I hadn't recorded it at the time, and asked me now, I certainly wouldn't remember. Therefore, the planning of the Guangdong People's Publishing House is innovative and different from the common literary memoirs.
Yangcheng Evening News: In your current opinion, what is your favorite, or most important work?
Zhang Kangkang: In the early works, I liked "Northern Lights" the most. It was a hopeful writing, full of a youthful feeling. It's like the Northern Lights, which you may not encounter in your lifetime, but it exists. It was also a real feeling left for me in 1980. Later works I will pay more attention to 1996's "Chi Tong Dan Zhu". In it, I wrote about my family, my parents, and re-acquainted myself with the history of my parents through writing.
Looking back at the controversial works of the past, it is more calm
Yangcheng Evening News: Some of your works have caused relatively large controversy, such as "Love Gallery", looking back now, how do you feel?
Zhang Kangkang: It is actually quite normal to have controversy. If we come out with works that everyone applauds, then I don't think the significance of writing has exceeded that of the times. Some writing may be ahead of its time or it may be more skewed. I don't think I was particularly concerned at that time, and the most I could do was to comfort myself and say, you see so many people opposing me, which shows how important my work is. In fact, looking back now, it may be more calm.
Sometimes, we have to think differently. At that time, they thought so, and there was their reason. In retrospect, our conceptual and cultural understanding of love and beauty is relatively lacking. It's been more than 20 years since this work was published, the readership has changed to another generation, and now that girls in their 20s are reading this book, I think it may be acceptable.
Yangcheng Evening News: After 40 years of creation, will there be any pressure to break through inertia or challenge your own limitations before writing? How is it solved?
Zhang Kangkang: Before every time I write, of course, I have the desire to challenge my own limitations and break through my own inertia, and I want to surpass myself every time, at least not to repeat my previous works, and writers who have requirements for themselves are like this. From the beginning of conceiving a work, it is necessary to repeatedly think about the most suitable program for expressing your own work, this idea needs to be innovative, there is a breakthrough, whether it is the angle of entry, or the content of expression, it is fresh. It's like digging a mine, reaching a new level. As for how to solve this problem, that is, think more, read more, there will be some experimental manuscripts, it is possible that a draft is not well written, it is better to invalidate it, to tear it down and start over, but still may not be able to solve it well.
The "post-50s" writers are more deeply involved in the era
Yangcheng Evening News: You have been classified as a "young writer". Do you agree with this statement?
Zhang Kangkang: Zhiqing writer, that was my identity 40 years ago. It's not right to put me in this right now. The intellectuals, including me, have been integrated into all social classes after returning to the city. It can only be said that Zhiqing is our former identity, and the traces of Zhiqing or the life of Zhiqing that we write about have also become very distant. Of course, if I had a new understanding of Zhiqing, I would have written it, and I wrote a short story in this regard ten years ago.
Yangcheng Evening News: How to evaluate the characteristics of "post-50s" writers?
Zhang Kangkang: "Post-50s" writers are a group that has experienced many things, and everyone's experience is their wealth. So, basically the writing of "post-50s" writers is based on their experiences. They are a generation of deeper interventions. Unlike some of today's young online writers, "post-50s" writers can ignore real life and travel into history, writing and reality are not closely related. However, "post-50s" writers usually write with such distinct characteristics of the times and age.
Yangcheng Evening News: Most of today's writers have a "long-form worship" complex, but readers in the Internet age are increasingly pursuing "short and fast" and "fragmented". In this trend, how should writers treat themselves?
Zhang Kangkang: This question is very important. In fact, on the one hand, our readers want to be "short and fast", on the other hand, our online literature is getting longer and longer. There are commercial reasons for this, so I won't say them here. For traditional writers, there will be adjustments, but the writer's writing is basically based on the self, and when he forms a relatively full thing, he will write a long story. If he has a lot of small but interesting stories, he writes short stories. The style of writing is actually determined by their life experience, and they don't think much about the market.
China is rich in novels, but China's per capita reading is indeed low. I was also confused about this, but I had no intention of adjusting myself. Because I think which one is suitable for me to write, I will write which. I once said a very immodest statement, it is not that we follow the market, but that we want to lead the market, and I hope that I can lead the market.
(Zhu Shaojie)