Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 806 This is the highest level of hype
"Minghua, something big has happened!"

On the other end of the phone, Li Li's anxious tone startled Fang Minghua.

"What's the big deal? Xinxin? Or aunt?"

"No, it's the book you wrote!"

Li Li told Fang Minghua in detail what happened in the United States surrounding this book.

Oops
It’s so lively.

Fang Minghua had never expected this.

"Minghua, you don't have to worry. There are many people who support you. Famous American writers Peter Heisler, Toni Morrison, and Emily have publicly expressed their support for you. The China Press and Sing Tao Daily have also published statements of support for you. The team led by Professor Yu Rongyifang is already actively collecting signatures and submitting a petition to the California and federal governments, requesting a reinvestigation of the history of Chinese railroad construction." Li Li comforted.

"And it's a blessing in disguise. Your book is selling like hot cakes in the U.S. This month, its sales have even surpassed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, topping the New York bestseller list! Demi was grinning from ear to ear. Now the publishing house is contacting the British publisher Heinemann Publishers to prepare for publication in the UK."

This is hype at its highest level.

Fang Minghua sighed in his heart.

"I am now organizing a translation team to translate your novel into French, Spanish and other languages ​​as soon as possible, and strive to publish it in these countries and regions to expand its influence." Li Li finally said.

"Okay, take care of yourself."

The two chatted about other things for a while before hanging up the phone.

Fang Minghua left the living room and continued to drink tea and bask in the sun in the small courtyard.

Since the storm is so fierce, let it get even stronger. It is none of your business now anyway.

In the afternoon, when Song Tangtang got home from work, Fang Minghua told her the content of the call from Li Li.

Song Tangtang was also surprised. How could a book cause such a big stir?
"That's great! The Chinese version will allow Shu Bin to speed up the publication and let the people of our country see this history!" Song Tangtang said.

Fang Minghua doesn't worry too much about things on the other side of the ocean. What he is focusing on now is the first Banyan Tree Online Literature Competition.

It is now early December and the submission of entries for the competition has ended. The next step is for the judges to gather in Shanghai to select the winning works.

Fang Minghua and Jia Pingwa boarded the train to Shanghai together.

The meeting was held at Jin Jiang Hotel, and Wang Shuo, Mo Yan and others were also present. Shi Tiesheng came in a wheelchair, accompanied by his wife Chen Ximi.

Everyone was familiar with each other and often met on different occasions, but it was the first time they met online writers such as Ning Caishen, Xing Yusen, Annie Baby, Wu Guo, Liu Wu, and SIEG (Qi Ge).

In the conference room, Wang Shuo, who was always arrogant, was a little surprised when he saw that these people were all young people in their early twenties.

"So young?"

"Wang Shuo, when you published your first novel, you were about the same age as them, right?" The speaker was Su Tong.

A few years ago, Wang Shuo and his team set up a Haima Studio, and recruited a large number of writers to write scripts, including Su Tong. The two worked together for a period of time, so they are quite familiar with each other.

Wang Shuo nodded and took a puff of cigarette before saying, "My first officially published novel was The Story of the Seagull. I was 24 years old that year. But at that time, we were all rookies in the literary world. When we met the editor, we treated him like an old man. How could we be like these people who are old men at such a young age?!"

Everyone laughed when they heard this.

This guy still speaks so hurtfully.

But it does make sense. In the traditional literary world, magazines may have editors in their twenties, but have never seen literary reviewers in their twenties.

In addition to Ning Caishen, Fang Minghua also met for the first time. Everyone smiled and shook hands with each other.

Fang Minghua looked at the young faces.

These people are known as the first generation of online writers, but in the eyes of later generations, their identity as online writers has long been blurred. They are writers rather than online writers.

People always feel that they are not Tang Jia San Shao or Feng Huo Xi Zhu Hou, the former is clearly distinguished from the younger generations.

But when we look back and sort out the origins of online literature, which is not far away, we find that the "online literature" of later generations is actually more narrow in meaning.

Ning Caishen, Xing Yusen, and Annie Baby all grew up reading books by Fang Minghua and others. Now they are excited to see the real person.

Of course, I feel a little proud to be a judge together with my idol.

This is online literature!
As the organizer of the competition, Dai Jiali briefly talked about the submissions to this competition.

"Dear judges, this competition received nearly 10 readers visiting the competition homepage, and received a total of 7235 entries. After the editor's initial review, 2302 entries entered the formal review stage, and were read and commented on by the judges. Among them, 320 entries received the approval of more than half of the judges and entered the final review stage."

"Thank you for your hard work, judges. On behalf of the organizing committee of the competition, I would like to express my sincere gratitude!"

There was applause in the conference room.

What made Ning Caishen and his colleagues excited was that the website traffic increased dramatically in a short period of time.

What surprised Wang Shuo and the others was that there were so many submissions?!

This is simply unimaginable in traditional literary competitions!
"Oh my god. I've been feeling dizzy recently, and I've only read a third of the article?!" Jia Pingwa, who was sitting next to Fang Minghua, whispered after hearing this. "This is simply not a job for humans. Don't ask me to do it next time."

"Okay, okay. Next time we select the best articles, the number of articles the judges read should be within three to five hundred," Fang Minghua replied.

Indeed, he was dazzled during this period of time.

The next step is for the judges to once again read, discuss and score the 320 literary works that participated in the final review within ten days, and finally determine the winning works through numerical voting.

This is also hard work.

Sure enough, the article "The Little Restaurant in the Age of Sexy" received high ratings and was recognized by most of the traditional and online writers present at the conference.

It seemed like winning the award was certain, it was just a matter of which prize it was.

During the day, everyone reads and discusses in the conference room, and at night everyone rests and wanders around.

Tonight, Fang Ning and Jia Pingwa planned to help Chen Ximi push Shi Tiesheng to Nanjing Road for a walk. The two places were not far away, so everyone planned to walk there.

As soon as I got out of the hotel elevator, I saw Dai Jiali walking towards me hurriedly.

"Jia Li, are you going back to rest at night?" Fang Minghua greeted.

"I'm so busy, how can I have time?" Dai Jiali complained and said to Fang Minghua:
"Teacher Minghua, I have something to talk to you about. The drama troupe of East China Normal University has staged a play, part of which is adapted from the "First Intimate Contact" you wrote. I heard that we are going to hold an award ceremony for the online literature competition, so I wanted to perform it at the ceremony, but the adaptation has not been authorized by you. Look at this..."

This is it.

"It doesn't matter, just let them use it." Fang Minghua was very generous.

This is not the first time that this novel has been staged by a drama troupe, and most of them are drama troupes run by college students.

"The pioneering work of online novels", the first best-selling novel in the history of China's Internet, is well-deserved of its reputation.

(End of this chapter)