Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 735: Isn't this really unfair?!
For well-known reasons, the last Mao Dun Literature Prize had its selection period extended by one year, and works from 1985 to 1988 were selected.

According to convention, the selection period for the Fourth Mao Dun Prize can be extended to 1989 to 1993 at the latest, and the selection work will be carried out in 1994.

However, this work was repeatedly delayed and was not started until 1995, so the selection period had to be extended to 1989 to 1994, a span of 6 years!
The selection of "White Deer Plain" was also full of twists and turns, with many different versions, but now Fang Minghua can witness what exactly happened in this history.

On May 5, Fang Minghua said goodbye to his wife and children and boarded the train to Yanjing with his travel bag. He arrived in Yanjing the next afternoon and stayed at the Ziyu Hotel.

When the Writers Association holds meetings, they like to arrange for members from all over the country to meet in this hotel, and Fang Minghua has stayed here several times.

The first meeting of the jury was held the next day. However, this time the meeting was of a high standard and was not held in the Federation of Literary and Art Circles Building at the Agricultural Exhibition Hall. Instead, it was held in the conference room on the second floor of the Xua Department Building on Chaoyangmennei Street. The judges arrived one after another.

The selection committee consists of 23 members, and Palladium is still the chairman. However, Palladium is old and in poor health, and rarely appears in public. The committee is chaired by Chen Changben, the deputy chairman.

Fang Minghua sat in the back row.

He looked at the committee members who entered the meeting room one after another, Ding Ning, Liu Yushan, Jiang Xiaotian, Chen Yong, Li Xifan
Ordinary readers may not be aware of them, and their names are not as famous as those of popular writers, but Fang Minghua knows that these people are the real bigwigs in the literary world and have absolute say!
Most of them were over 50 years old, and Fang Minghua, a "young man" in his 30s, stood out particularly in the conference room.

However, everyone greeted each other in a friendly manner, just like in any other meeting. As long as the organizer did not put out table signs with names on them, participants would generally sit together and chat in low voices with people they were familiar with.

There are really not many people Fang Minghua is familiar with.

After all, there is a generation gap in age. Apart from meeting Fang Minghua at the annual Writers Association meetings or individual literary seminars, they rarely interact with each other.

At this time, a man greeted him with a smile, called "Minghua", and sat in the empty seat next to him.

Radar! Deputy editor-in-chief of Chinese Writers, a famous literary critic, Fang Minghua met him at the seminar on Lu Yao's Ordinary World in 88.

Most of the participants criticized the novel, but Lei Da supported it, which left a good impression on Fang Minghua.

Later, I met him at several work seminars and we became quite familiar with each other.

Seeing the other party sitting over, Fang Minghua moved to the side and replied with a smile: "Editor-in-Chief Lei, hello."

"Minghua, when will you return to Lanzhou University and give a few classes to the students?" Lei Da asked with a smile.

Return to Lanzhou University?

Fang Minghua was slightly surprised.

He did give a lecture at Lanzhou University. At that time, Fang Minghua and Wu Tianmin were filming "Hidden in the Dust" in Minqin, Gansu Province. Because they wanted to write a literary review on stream of consciousness, they went to Lanzhou University to look up information and were invited by Ke Yang, the then director of the Chinese Department of Lanzhou University, to give a lecture on stream of consciousness literature.

But that was in 82, 14 years ago.

I am a little surprised to hear the old story of Radar being brought up again.

"I am currently serving as a doctoral supervisor in the Department of Literature at Lanzhou University, majoring in modern and contemporary Chinese literature. I have several students. When I have time, I would like to invite you to give lectures to our students. Your publication on modern poetry theory in Tianya magazine is quite good," Lei Da explained.

So that's it! "Okay, I'll go if I have the chance," Fang Minghua replied.

The two were chatting when someone loudly said that a meeting was about to start. The meeting room suddenly became quiet.

"Comrades, let's start the meeting now." Chen Changben sat on the rostrum and said:
"Last November, after the unremitting efforts of 11 members of the reading class, the preliminary evaluation work was completed. 23 works were selected from 111 novels, and then 30 works were selected from the 30 works and provided to the jury for reference. The job of our jury is to select the best works that best represent the literature of our time from these 20 novels!"

"Comrades, the general catalogue of the 111 recommended works from all over the country that participated in the preliminary review will be distributed to each member of the jury after the meeting. You can check any work at any time. It depends on you to find out whether there are any pearls left in the ocean."

Everyone laughed after hearing this.

Immediately afterwards, Comrade Zhai Taifeng expressed his opinions on this year's award evaluation work, the most important of which was the discussion of the first draft of the "Awarding Plan for the Fourth Mao Dun Literature Award".

The first draft is placed on each member's desk.

Fang Minghua had already read it, and what interested him was this line:
In addition to the 20 works, any judge has the right to propose other works for the jury to read, provided that the other two judges second it, to ensure that no works worthy of attention are missed!
This one is interesting.
That is to say, among these 111 works, even if they did not make it into the 20 works initially reviewed by the reading class, as long as they are nominated by three judges, they can directly enter the jury's discussion list and compete for the Mao Dun Prize together with those 20 works!

This power is great enough.

Of course, Fang Minghua had no objection to the first draft of the plan. Many of the people present had served as judges for the second and third Mao Dun Prizes and were very experienced. Since he was a newcomer, it would be better for him to keep a low profile.

The entire day was spent discussing this plan. The discussion ended in the afternoon and everyone's opinions were handed over to the judges' office for revision.

The meeting continued the next day. This time, the jury office presented a list of 111 participating works and a list of twenty novels that had passed the initial evaluation by the reading class.

Fang Minghua picked up the catalog and looked at it carefully.

"White Deer Plain" is included!
"War and Man" is also here!
“‘White Gate Willow’ is also here!”

There is not even the award-winning "Turbulent Autumn"!
In other words, "The Turmoil of Autumn" was not included in the initial 20-film list, but was added later by someone who recommended it?
Let’s take a look at the other 20 works on the list:
"Zeng Guofan", "Emperor Yongzheng", "Business World", "Century Aristocrats". There is even Wang Meng's "The Transformation of Human Form"!
Oh, Wang Meng’s work was also eventually eliminated!
Fang Minghua was slightly disappointed after reading the list of 20 novels that were initially reviewed.

Historically, the four winning works announced for the 4th Mao Dun Literature Prize were all concentrated in traditional realism and traditional historical novels, while new historicism and avant-garde novels were completely wiped out!

Looking at this list of 20 novels alone, there are very few that make the cut in the latter two categories.

Let’s not talk about Jia Pingwa’s “Wasted City” as it is quite controversial.

What about Ge Fei's "Edge"? What about Wang Anyi's "Documentary and Fiction"? What about Liu Heng's "Ode to Freedom"?

How about Su Tong's "Rice"? How about Liu Zhenyun's "Hometown Yellow Flowers"? How about Zhang Wei's "September Fable"?

Also, what about Yu Hua's "To Live"? !
The most popular books in recent years didn’t even make it into the top 20 list!
What the hell!

This this
Isn't this really unfair?!
(End of this chapter)