Writer 1979: Writing for the People

On August 9, Wang Zhangheng made another trip to the Yanhe Magazine office. This time, he mainly brought the interview manuscript to show Xu Lu.

"No problem..."

After reading it, Xu Lu nodded. The content was exactly what he wanted to express, and there was no ambiguity.

"Alright, this interview should be published in the Shaanxi Daily around the 15th. By the way, Comrade Xu Lu, your research article on rural literature that you submitted will be published the day after tomorrow!"

"So fast..."

Xu Lu was somewhat surprised. He had sent the article on August 7th, but he didn't expect it to be published on August 11th. The efficiency was really fast.

"Our director said that your article is groundbreaking, so we've expedited its processing!"

Wang Zhangheng explained with a smile.

Although Xu Lu's essay "Establishing Rural Literature" is not as exciting as his novels, its significance is no less than that of "Wheat Harvester".

They believe that this article will attract widespread attention after its publication.

For articles like these, the Shaanxi Daily would naturally expedite the process as much as possible!

……

On the morning of August 11, when Xu Lu walked into the editing room, ready to start a new day's work, she found everyone gathered together, looking at something.

"What are you all looking at?"

"Xiao Xu, your research article on rural literature has been published in the Shaanxi Daily."

This article is truly well-written, logical, and supported by evidence. I believe it will greatly contribute to the development of local literature.

You've really done something big this time!

Team leader Lu Meng said with a smile that although everyone was present at the seminar a while ago and had some understanding of this matter,

However, when they saw this article, they still felt that Xu Lu's concept of "rural literature" did indeed have its unique aspects.

I have no idea how he came up with that!

As for Xu Lu himself, he didn't pay much attention and immediately returned to his workstation to continue reading the manuscript.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get a decent one reviewed today!

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……

As everyone had predicted, with the publication of the article "Establishing Rural Literature," the concept of "rural literature" quickly sparked heated discussions throughout the literary circles of Shaanxi Province and even the entire country.

It is evolving from a writer's personal claim into a public issue across the entire industry.

First, this is the first time since the new era that literature has been conceptually separated from the framework of political tools, which can be regarded as a landmark breakthrough in the "depoliticization" of literary concepts.

Secondly, it also reconstructed the academic context of Chinese rural literature.

It reconnects with the May Fourth rural literature tradition that had been interrupted for decades, continuing the writing lineage pioneered by Lu Xun, which focuses on regional culture and the expression of human nature, from history, breaking away from the singular literary historical narrative that only acknowledged rural themes since the "Seventeen Years".

Its importance is self-evident.

At the same time, it also helped the collective awakening of local literary consciousness.

After reading "Establishing Rural Literature," writers and literary figures from other provinces couldn't help but start thinking: If Xu Lu can write about the Guanzhong region of Shaanxi Province, can places like Shanxi and Hunan also sort out their local literary traditions and create their own local literary brands?

Upon closer examination, this is actually entirely feasible!

In addition, the themes of hometown identity, regional customs, and the depth of human nature in the era mentioned in the article are becoming common standards for judging works about rural life.

Whether they are the most appropriate is another matter, but the emergence of these three points can at least end the previous state of vague concepts and classification based solely on political attributes.

Thus, just over a month after the article was published in "Maike", the name Xu Lu once again appeared in the sight of countless industry insiders.

They were all curious about his identity, experiences, and thoughts, and wanted to know what kind of person he really was.

Although the article's authorship indicated that he was a seconded editor for "Yanhe," this was not enough to satisfy everyone's curiosity.

They also wanted to know more about him.

In addition, theoretical articles like "Reconstructing Rural Literature" are generally intended for industry professionals, and ordinary readers usually skip them.

However, after noticing that the author of the article was Xu Lu, quite a few people still took a second look.

As this is a theoretical article, Xu Lu used a lot of official terminology in order to maintain rigor, which to some extent further increased the reading threshold of the article.

Fortunately, there is the article "Wheat Harvester" as an example, so even ordinary readers can easily understand what Xu Lu is expressing.

In short, Comrade Xu Lu was saying that we should write more articles like "Wheat Harvesters"...

That's a great suggestion!

They love reading articles like this!

Although they didn't know how much impact the re-establishment of the concept of "native literature" would have, they knew one thing.

That's Comrade Xu Lu, he's really amazing!

On August 15, the Shaanxi Daily published another article, this time an interview with Xu Lu.

After the newspaper was published, it was immediately snapped up, with everyone eager to know what the article contained.

This interview didn't provide much personal information about Xu Lu. All that was known was that he was in his thirties, had previously been a sent-down youth, and was currently working as a seconded editor at Yanhe.

The content focuses more on his literary creations.

This includes his creative philosophy, his thoughts on literature, and some interesting anecdotes from his writing career...

After reading this part, readers who already had an impression of him felt even more favorably toward him!

Especially when they heard him say that he wrote those two articles to bring some beauty to everyone; and that he wrote children's literature to teach children some correct principles, they were suddenly moved.

They felt that Xu Lu was really different from most other writers.

At least he would genuinely consider the feelings of his readers.

Of course, there are also some fans of scar literature who, when they see Xu Lu say that he wrote "Receiving the Precepts" and "My Distant Qingping Bay" to make everyone feel the beauty, still can't help but scoff at it.

Beautiful? What good is beauty anyway!

What is the social significance of beauty? What is its educational significance?

Don't think that just because you recently wrote "Wheat Harvester" and received rave reviews, you can criticize "scar literature." You're not qualified.

Despite the criticism, given Xu Lu's current reputation and popularity, those who were dissatisfied have remained silent.