1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 336: Romance Unique to Chinese People
"Eighteen old men, there's a result!" the editor shouted.

As soon as he mentioned eighteen old men, Lu Yao immediately realized that he was talking about the Nobel Prize in Literature selection, which has attracted much attention in the literary world recently.

The Swedish Academy has eighteen old men who select the final winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature every year.

"Who is it?" Zhou Shuqi asked curiously.

The editor held up the Wenhui Daily in his hand. "A Colombian writer, Gabriel García Márquez, whose award-winning work is called One Hundred Years of Solitude."

“Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

Lu Yao hurriedly took the Wenhui Daily from his hand and took a look at it. There was a black-and-white photo of the winner Marquez on it.

On the podium, among the hundreds of Western faces, Marquez was the only person not wearing a black tuxedo.

He was wearing a white shirt. Lu Yao had never seen a shirt of this style before. He looked more like a chef than a writer.

However, the article below introduces that the author of the article is Xu Zhongyu.

Xu Zhongyu introduced that Marquez was wearing the litch suit that Caribbean people wear in daily life.

Marquez thought wearing a black tuxedo was very "unlucky", so he chose this outfit.

This is also the first time in history that a Nobel Prize winner did not wear a black suit.

In addition to the ethnic attire, Marquez also wore a yellow rose on his chest to represent good luck.

"Márquez, Márquez."

Lu Yao excitedly read his name twice, "Jiang Xian told me that he said that sooner or later, Marquez will win an award for his work One Hundred Years of Solitude."

Lu Yao still remembers the night when Jiang Xian said that "One Hundred Years of Solitude" would definitely win an award.

I didn't expect his prophecy to come true so quickly.

Xu Zhongyu introduced this Colombian writer from Latin America in his article.

But in fact, Marquez has been exiled to Colombia at this time, exiled by his homeland.

Until the creation of "One Hundred Years of Solitude", this unfortunate writer lived in poverty and debt.

Then the goddess of luck finally arrived, and on a sunny afternoon, Márquez suddenly came up with the beginning of the story he had been holding back for more than ten years:
“Years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Then, this novel came out.

Before the novel was published, Márquez had nothing.

After the novel was published, Márquez quickly became one of the richest writers.

Overnight, almost the whole world was talking about "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

The Spanish called it a stunning work that can be compared with the "Bible" of Spanish literature, "Don Quixote".

The novel is being translated all over the world.

The publisher calls One Hundred Years of Solitude the smokeless factory because it doesn't emit smoke but creates huge profits and new records every day.

The more Lu Yao read this article, the more regretful he felt.

The United States, Germany, Britain, Portugal, Soviet Russia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Japan, Czech Republic, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania.
Over the past decade, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" has been a best-seller in so many countries.

But to date, Lu Yao has never read the Chinese version of this novel, and he had never even heard of it before Jiang Xian mentioned it.

Especially after learning from Jiang Xian how excellent the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was, Lu Yao felt deeply uneasy and insecure.

It has been nearly 20 years since One Hundred Years of Solitude became a best-seller around the world.

However, this magical realism writing style has only been proposed in the domestic literary world today.

So, to this day.

Can Chinese literature still keep pace with world literature?
Can it still reach world-class level?
Can Chinese writers gain recognition from the world literary community?

Lu Yao raised his head and met Zhou Shuqi's eyes, which were also full of anxiety and confusion.

There is no doubt that both of them had such thoughts and worries at this moment.

But when Lu Yao's gaze fell back on the manuscript of "The Last Hun" on the table.

His heart, which was filled with anxiety, finally calmed down a little.

We still have Jiang Xian!

We have works of the same level as "The Last Hun" and "Red Sorghum".

Aren't you qualified enough to talk to the world? !
The list of Nobel Prize winners is usually announced in October, and the award ceremony is held on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

However, the mountains are high and the roads are long, making it difficult to transmit information at home and abroad. The news of Marquez's winning the award did not spread in the country until after the award ceremony.

This is also thanks to Xu Zhongyu, who spent a lot of effort writing an article introducing this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.

In addition, the award was given to an author from the same third world country as China.

This is the same as in later generations. Whenever an Asian author wins an award, there will be a lot of attention in the country.

Correspondingly, people nowadays are more concerned about the concept of the third world.

Therefore, this year's Nobel Prize in Literature has quickly attracted unprecedented attention in the country.

At the same time, the sixth issue of World Literature in December 1982 published the contents of six chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Domestic readers immediately got a glimpse of the contents of the six chapters of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" through the magazine "World Literature".

As mentioned before, China is not yet a member of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

In other words, China has not yet committed to protecting the copyright of world literature.

Therefore, these six chapters were not authorized by Marquez and are actually pirated.

But then again, at present, the legal awareness in China is weak, the level of literary development is not high enough, and there is no concept of what literary copyright is.

This also caused Marquez to say angrily later:
"I will not grant any copyright of my works to any Chinese publisher during my lifetime. I swear that I will not authorize China to publish my works, especially One Hundred Years of Solitude, 150 years after my death."

Beijing.

There was still unmelted snow piled up at the entrance of the alley.

Jiang Xian put on his clothes and went out to sign for the letter from Xi'an.

The letter was sent by Lu Yao.

He first talked about his feelings after reading "The Last Hun" in the letter:

“This novel is about the Xiongnu and the different experiences of several generations of a family.

It was not until I finished reading it that I realized that the protagonist of the novel was not called Yang Ganda, Yang Zuoxin or Heidatou, let alone Yang Anxiang.

The protagonist of the novel is time. At first, I was puzzled by your occasional hints about the future plot.

I don’t understand why we should talk about the relationship between his son and the Yang family when Heidatou is still young and energetic.

Later I realized that rather than writing a novel, you are writing about time.

Maybe time is not what we think it is. As the saying goes: Time flies like an arrow, day and night. Time is not gone forever.

Why are the Hei family and the Yang family closely connected despite having no connection, why did Hei Datou fight side by side with Little Northwest King, why were the wounded soldiers such as Yang Ezi from 101, why did the leader hold the young Yang Anxiang?
In fact, it is not accidental or coincidental, it is because of time.

Time is the protagonist.

As you wrote in your novel, 'Time is like a pair of scattered pieces of paper. You never know when you will pick up two pieces and put them together, and then you will suddenly feel a sense of déjà vu.'

I think, in fact, people are jumping and shuttling through their own lives. Maybe we have seen our future, but we have never thought that the future will be like this.

I read this novel, read the past, present and future, and feel life in time.

At this moment, I felt as if time was broken, and I vaguely understood the meaning of "epic"."

Lu Yao's writing is sincere and emotional, which deserves high praise.

From these sentences, Jiang Xian can clearly feel Lu Yao's love for the novel "The Last Hun".

Especially as a native of northern Shaanxi, Lu Yao was able to read emotions and meanings from this novel that people from other places could not.

Like many folk songs and legends of northern Shaanxi, outsiders don’t understand them, and even if they see them, they won’t care much.

And people from northern Shaanxi like Lu Yao, who have been exposed to the local customs of northern Shaanxi since childhood, can definitely understand it.

This is like "One Hundred Years of Solitude". When readers are puzzled by some of the magical plots that combine local Latin American culture and start to interpret them, they invisibly begin to interpret the local Latin American culture, thus further understanding the local culture.

There is also "Black Myth". The "man of destiny" arrived at the secret cave, opened the treasure chest, and saw the mural of Patriarch Bodhi. If he had no blood or mana at this time, he would automatically recover in the cave. At this time, Chinese players were already in tears, but foreign players did not understand.

This is also the charm of this type of work.

Just like "Black Myth", it will give players the romance that is unique to the Chinese.

But at the same time, it attracts a large number of foreigners who don’t understand it to try to get in touch with it and understand it.

Lu Yao also explained the distribution to Jiang Xian. On behalf of Yanhe, he made three promises to Jiang Xian:
First: the full text is published in one issue;
Second, the front page headlines;
Third, large font size.

Considering Jiang Xian's status, his article can be published in Yanhe, so these treatments are actually what he deserves.

At the end of the letter, Lu Yao asked about the news about the second volume of Jiang Xian's "The Last Hun".

Many writers like to write their works in volumes, especially novels.

Take Lu Yao himself for example.

The well-known "Ordinary World" was actually written in three parts and published separately with several years in between.

Moreover, this kind of separate publication is very unstable. Many authors will not create the second volume because the first volume is not well received.

Let’s also talk about "Ordinary World".

After Lu Yao finished writing his first novel, The Ordinary World, he submitted it to Contemporary China, but the editor of the magazine criticized it:
"How could a writer who could write 'Life' end up with such a low level of talent?"

That’s right, the first part of “The Ordinary World” was directly rejected by “Contemporary”.

The second part was not accepted by any literary magazine.

It was Lu Yao who, with great perseverance, endured the pain in his body, gritted his teeth and wrote the third part with his life.

As a result, the only third part that was published publicly was only published in the most marginal literary magazine.

Finally, with God's help, the novel was broadcast on radio, which enabled this neglected work to conquer 3 million listeners in days through regular radio broadcasts.

By the way.

The editor of "Contemporary" who rejected "Ordinary World" was named Zhou Changyi. He later rejected another novel.

It's called "White Deer Plain".

The key is that even after the guy left, he still kept his mouth shut. When I asked him about this later, he said:

"They also reject manuscripts. I couldn't finish reading "Ordinary World" and "White Deer Plain."

“Only Wasted City can be read in one go!”

Jiang Xian was also unable to give Lu Yao an exact completion date for the creation.

In Jiang Xian's opinion, the second volume of the novel "The Last Hun" has some flaws.

Its first volume, one event after another, generation after generation, presents an epic-like vastness and magnificence, with a sense of vastness.

But in the second volume, time flows more slowly, day after day, and large sections discuss the philosophy of life, the way of governing government, or the appreciation of art.

I have to say that the original author Comrade Gao Jianqun does have a broad range of knowledge.

However, the writing was much more sloppily done than the first volume. Jiang Xian felt that if it was only at this level, there was no need to publish it unless he could improve the second volume to the same quality as the first volume. Publishing it would be seen as a poor imitation, which would lower the evaluation and quality of the novel.

So in his reply, he did not promise Lu Yao that he would write the second volume immediately, not even a promise that he would write the second volume.

This is also a very normal thing in the literary world. Some writers often wait decades before starting to write the next few parts of a novel.

On this day, Jiang Xian received a notice from the Beijing Writers Association that his transfer to People's Literature was successful and the transfer order had been issued.

Shortly after he received the notice, Wang Meng came to his door with a bottle of wine in her hand.

"Last year, I was invited to lead a delegation to visit France. I heard that French wine is good. When I was about to return home, I used the foreign exchange I saved to buy a few bottles of local red wine, but I have been reluctant to drink it."

"Then why are you willing to bring it to me?"

"Humph, now everyone says you are Mr. Sanduo, with lots of wine, lots of articles, and lots of friends. When I come to your place to bring you wine, of course I have to bring a bottle of good wine, so that you won't look down on me."

"Aren't the three "duo" houses, articles and friends? When did they change to "duo" wine?" Jiang Xian didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

In fact, it is normal. He and Wang Meng drink a lot. Among Wang Meng's circle of friends, the three most common ones are naturally these three.

As for another circle of friends who often visit his big yard, it means that he has too many houses.

You can call him Mr. Sanduo whatever you want.

Even if someone in the future really wants to figure out his nickname, and if everyone has a different opinion, I'm afraid they will have to roll up their sleeves and argue for a long time.

"I came here this time to bring you two good news." Wang Meng poured wine for Jiang Xian with a happy face.

Jiang Xian had a tall glass at home, which he bought with foreign exchange coupons. It was just right for drinking red wine.

He drank the wine in the glass and looked at Wang Meng.

"Two good news?"

(End of this chapter)