Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 817 Who will win the Best Novel Award at this year’s Chinese Literature Awards?
Fang Minghua had almost no participation in this World Chinese Literature Award. He was neither a member of the reading class nor a final judge, but was designated as the award presenter.

In Bai Miao's words: "You are the founder of the Chinese Language Award, so it is only natural that you should be awarded an award."

So Fang Minghua had no choice but to go.

According to convention, the jury will first conduct a final review of the shortlisted works in a closed-door meeting, and finally hold an awards ceremony to announce the results.

Now the meeting is over and the results are out, but they are kept strictly confidential and Fang Minghua doesn't know about them.

Of course, if Fang Minghua wanted to ask the organizer Bai Miao, he would definitely know the result, but he didn't think it was necessary.

It's interesting to guess.

Who will win the Best Novel Award, which is what he cares about most?
According to the announced shortlist: "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" by Wang Anyi, "Choice" by Zhang Ping, "Maqiao Dictionary" by Han Shaogong, "Paradise Lost" by Japanese writer Jun'ichi Watanabe, and "Don't Die Before Your Death" by Russian writer Yevtushenko.

Among them, the most popular are "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" and "Paradise Lost".

"The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" takes the legendary life of the protagonist Wang Qiyao, who is like "Splendid Smoke and Dust", as its main content, linking the vicissitudes of the times with the misfortunes of personal destiny.

In this novel, the author Wang Anyi gradually weakened the influence of traditional realistic literary views, used a variety of metaphors, and film montage techniques, and his writing style is cool, humorous, delicate and moving.

Fang Minghua is also quite optimistic about this book. In history, it won the fifth Mao Dun Literature Prize! Of course, it has not been announced yet.

Another one is "Paradise Lost", which tells the story of a middle-aged man and woman who committed suicide because of an extramarital affair.

The novel draws on the creative ideas and writing techniques of Heian period literature represented by Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji" in the 11th century. Watanabe Jun'ichi skillfully incorporates the "elegance" and "mono no aware" of the Heian period into his own work, creating an artistic effect that is delicate in depiction, sincere in emotion, and exciting.

This book caused a great sensation in the Japanese literary world, and even led to the "Paradise Lost" phenomenon. It also had a certain influence in China.

In 1997, it also won the Japan New Word and Buzzword Award.

In fact, Fang Minghua thinks that "Don't Die Before You Die" is quite good. This best-selling book by the famous Russian poet Yevtushenko caused a sensation in Russia, Europe and the United States in the 1990s.

The unrestrained new realism style makes it difficult to define its subject matter and genre. Some critics say that this is a political news documentary that reveals the truth about the political turmoil before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union under the cover of many interesting stories, involving the personal circumstances of the Soviet president and marshals.
However, given the sensitive subject matter, the chances of winning an award are unlikely.

Fang Minghua arrived in Lanzhou by train on May 5 and stayed at the Lanzhou Hotel.

Lanzhou Hotel is very famous in Lanzhou City. The overall architecture is in the style of the former Soviet Union, solemn and generous. Being used to seeing Western or modern-style hotels everywhere in China, suddenly seeing this kind of building with the color of former Soviet heavy industry gives me a strong sense of nostalgia.

The members of the literature award jury and the 25 writers whose works were shortlisted all lived here, and Fang Minghua met many familiar faces.

In fact, this kind of ceremony also provides everyone with a rare opportunity to meet and communicate together. Everyone can talk about each other's recent situation, literature, etc.

During dinner, Fang Minghua and Wang Anyi sat together, and he said, "Sister Anyi, many people are optimistic about your "Song of Everlasting Regret"

"Yes, I like your book too." The speaker was Han Shaogong, who was eating a piece of chili pepper. As expected, people from Hunan Province love spicy food.

The Maqiao Dictionary, which was shortlisted this time, is also one of Han Shaogong's representative works, but it caused controversy after its publication. A group of people, including Zhang Yiwu, a professor of the Chinese Department of Yenching University, believed that the Maqiao Dictionary was plagiarized from the Dictionary of the Khazars written by Yugoslav writer Milorad Pavic.

The Dictionary of the Khazars is a famous novel published in 1984, recording the history of a dynasty that once existed and then fell. The content of this novel is complex, with ancient and modern times, fantasy and realization, dreams and non-dreams intertwined. It goes back in time and space, and transforms people into ghosts. It describes in a confusing way the mystery of the Khazars suddenly disappearing from the world in the Middle Ages, and is recognized as a strange book.

But it was later confirmed that the "Maqiao Dictionary" was just borrowing the dictionary-style writing of the "Dictionary of the Khazars", and that dictionary-style writing had existed long before Pavić's "Dictionary of the Khazars".

Imitation of the structure of literary works is not only not plagiarism, but rather a tribute.

However, this incident also cast a shadow on Han Shaogong himself and the publication of this book. Han Shaogong is already satisfied with being shortlisted for the World Best Chinese Novel Award.

As for winning an award, he doesn't expect it.

Although both of her friends are optimistic about her book, Wang Anyi is still relatively sober. She said: "Not necessarily. Among the five books shortlisted, which one is not weak? Especially Jun'ichi Watanabe's Paradise Lost has a great influence in Japan and our country.

Jun'ichi Watanabe also came to Lanzhou, but he was chatting happily with Lei Da and others at another table through a translator.

Also sitting at this table was Zhang Ping, the author of the shortlisted work "Choice".

Zhang Ping is the same age as Wang Anyi, but compared with writers like Wang Anyi and Han Shaogong who became famous in the 1980s, Zhang Ping is much inferior in the literary world.

His novels mainly reflect the sharp contradictions in the reality of factories, cities and officialdom, such as "Blood Soul", "Skynet" and "Choice".

This type of novel suddenly emerged a few years ago with Fang Minghua's "In the Name of People". It was hailed as a realism shock wave and attracted people's attention.

Zhang Ping's "Choice" was written in this context. It takes the difficulties of large and medium-sized enterprises in real life as the background and describes the fierce struggle of a group of leading cadres against corruption and the masses against corruption.

Ordinary readers like to read this kind of novel very much, but many editors and critics in the literary world are not very optimistic about it. It was beyond his expectation that it could be shortlisted for the best.

There is another reason: this book was adapted into a TV series of the same name last year, which received very good responses. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons for the shortlist.

So while people around him were talking, he just ate his food in silence.

Fang Minghua saw all of this.

He and Zhang Ping had few interactions, only once, which was at the "Realistic Literature Works Conference" held by Zhongshan Magazine in Nanjing in 94.

It was at that meeting that Fang Minghua proposed the term "new realist novel". Later, works including "In the Name of People", "Dachang", "Director of the Letters and Visits Office", "No Hometown in the Snow", "Absolute Power", "God is Above", etc. were published one after another, including Zhang Ping's "Choice".

To some extent, Fang Minghua could be considered half the owner of this Chinese Literature Award Competition. After all, he was the one who founded this competition. So when he saw that Zhang Ping was being neglected, he took the initiative to start a conversation with him.

(End of this chapter)