On the morning of June 21, "Tribute to the little people who bravely move forward under the clouds of the big era - Zhang Chu's novel "Cloud Fall" Overseas Copyright Promotion Conference" was successfully held in the public activity area of the 30th Beijing International Book Fair. The promotion meeting was hosted by Beijing Publishing Group and undertaken by Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House. Wu Wenxue, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Director and General Manager of Beijing Publishing Group, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. Zhang Li, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Literature of Beijing Normal University, Na Yang, deputy director of the Creation and Research Department of the China Writers Association, Yang Qingxiang, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Literature of Chinese University, and Zhang Chu, writer and author of "Cloud Fall", attended the meeting and conducted in-depth exchanges around "Cloud Fall". Han Jingqun, editor-in-chief of Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House, and Gong Qihui, a third-level researcher of the Export Management Department of the Import and Export Administration of the Central Propaganda Department, participated. Media person Yu Yaqin hosted.
Zhang Chu was born in 1974. He is currently the vice chairman of the Tianjin Writers Association. He has published a collection of novels "The Story of Cherries", "Seven Peacock Feathers", "How the Night Gets Dark", "Miss Wild Elephant", "Middle-aged Women's Love History", "Crossing the Xiang River", "Domino Boy", etc. He has won the Lu Xun Literary Award, the Yu Dafu Novel Award, the Sun Li Literary Award, and the Lin Jinlan Short Story Award. He has been named "Young Writer of the Year" by "People's Literature" and "Southern Literary Circle". His works have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, etc.
The real shot of "Cloud Falling".
"Cloud Fall" is Zhang Chu's first novel. The protagonist Wan Ying faces all kinds of pressures in life, and family and love bring her tests from different directions, and she uses her wisdom to integrate them into the long river of time. Her friends are also moving forward in different ways, in the tide of the times, some sticking to their own direction, and some wandering at forks in the road. All of this comes together to form an era.
Wu Wenxue, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Director and General Manager of Beijing Publishing Group
Wu Wenxue said in his speech that "Cloud Fall" is a "big" novel that belongs to the little people, which writes about the great changes in our country "spanning a hundred years in one day", and writes about the courage and perseverance of the little people under the clouds of the big era. Since its publication, it has been loved by many writers and literary critics, and has won wide acclaim from a wide range of readers. It is precisely because ordinary people can see themselves from "Cloud Falling" that I believe that not only Chinese readers, but also readers from all over the world will love this sincere book of life.
Subtle and delicate fireworks in the world
Yu Yaqin said that the most impressive thing when reading "Cloud Falling" was Zhang Chu's description of human feelings. "The subtle emotions and intricate interactions between people, Zhang Chu writes very meticulously and specially. This may be a person-to-people relationship that we don't feel when we live in a city like Beijing. ”
Media person and host Yu Yaqin
In Zhang Li's view, the "subtlety" of Chinese in "Cloud Fall" comes from Zhang Chu's writing style of "not taking legends as legends, not taking daily life as daily life" and emotional details. Zhang Chu treats the characters in the legend as ordinary people, and handles the ordinary things in daily life in a shining and literary way. The things he describes have their own luster, he loves everything in this small city, and it also makes us deeply feel that those mountains and rivers, those people are worth loving, and the world is worth loving. Zhang Chu refreshed our vision of understanding and looking at the world. ”
"Subtlety" is also reflected in the depiction of the development of the times and the fate of the characters. Zhang Li said that "Cloud Falling" hides the great changes of the times in the description of the details, and the subtle changes in the subtleties are just like every ordinary person's personal feelings about the changes of the times, "The great changes happen to everyone, and everyone's life reflects the great changes of the times." Zhang Chu wants to write about the times, but the most important thing is that he writes about people. This is a particularly important quality of a good writer, and it is also the charm of literature."
Zhang Li, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Liberal Arts, Beijing Normal University
Na Yang deeply agrees: "Zhang Chu did not describe the grand events of the times positively, he just wrote those ordinary characters, and the 'era' is precisely in this. "Cloud Fall" tells the story around us, a very representative story with a sense of substitution, so it is very intimate to read. ”
"'Cloud Falling' is full of all kinds of elastic and tense details, and Zhang Chu understands these things as part of the world he has constructed," Yang Qingxiang lamented by the detailed description of plants in the novel, and he believes that at the moment when "Shuangwen" is popular, writing tends to go straight to the point at a fast pace, and the viscosity and texture of the novel or life itself gradually disappears. In "Cloud Falling", the accelerated timeline is slowed down, and "Zhang Chu uses words and life itself to make time more qualitative".
In response, Zhang Chu responded that he is a person who loves life and likes to observe life, and this observation and love of daily life will involuntarily reflect in the novel. "Eating and dressing is a very important ritual thing in our daily life, it is the way we touch life and love life, such as banquets, not only to eat a meal, but more importantly to show human feelings, it is a very important place for Chinese to communicate emotions." In the process of examining and tasting food, the emotions between people are also secretly communicated. ”
Concern and respect for women
"Cloud Falling" is the life history and spiritual history of a woman in a county town, and it is a gentle gift from writer Zhang Chu to those women who bloom like flowers in the mud.
Zhang Chu said that the reason why he focuses on middle-aged women is because he knows more about women at this age. At the same time, when male writers write about women, because they are separated by a thin veil of gender, they can sometimes see more essential things about people. "The imagination, construction, and expression of the other party will affect the creator's mood, and at the same time, it will also constitute an imagination for the creator, and when this imagination becomes a text and a character image, it may sometimes be more in line with the true part of that person."
Writer and author of "Cloud Falling" Zhang Chu
"A good writer will make the reader remember the gender of the writer, and it can also make the reader forget the gender", Zhang Li sighed, "It is not that writing women well is good women's writing, or good gender writing." Treat women as human beings in social relationships, write about her complexity, neither praise her nor belittle her; Neither as a goddess nor as a witch is good writing."
Wan Ying is the character that Zhang Li feels the most deeply and loves the most. "There's a lot of room for interpretation. On the one hand, she is a wounded woman, but at the same time she gives great comfort to many people's emotions, both as a giver and as a subjective person. She is like a lot of ordinary women in our lives, she is not good-looking and has a bloated figure, but she is attractive, because they can be our inner peace of mind, and they can provide us with great emotional value. Zhang Chu wrote about the complexity and ambiguity of Wan Ying. ”
A window to show China to the outside world
The county seat is the key to understanding China, and if you understand the county seat, you will also understand China. "Falling Clouds" outlines a "Qingming Riverside Map" of China's county town with meticulous brushstrokes, profoundly writes the life, emotions and spiritual dilemmas of ordinary people in the context of the great changes of the times, and is a thick book that shows the current situation and changes in the development of contemporary Chinese society. The guests hoped that excellent works could go to the world through the strong promotion of overseas copyright and dialogue with world literature, which is of great significance to contemporary Chinese literature.
Nayang said that the county town depicted in "Cloud Fall" is the most convenient channel for overseas readers to understand the current China, "I hope that such works can go to the world, and I believe that such works will be very popular around the world, and they can understand today's China and understand today's Chinese through such works."
Na Yang, deputy director of the Innovation and Research Department of the China Writers Association
Yang Qingxiang said that overseas researchers, critics and readers have a lag in their understanding of Chinese literature, and they, especially the younger generation, are actually very curious about the current development of China, so "Cloud Falling", a work that depicts Chinese society and the lives of ordinary people in the millennium, is particularly suitable for overseas promotion. "It is particularly important that the book provides real, ordinary and rich three-dimensional Chinese faces for contemporary Chinese literature and even world literature, and it is particularly important for overseas readers and researchers to truly understand contemporary Chinese life and the changes in contemporary China."
Yang Qingxiang, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Liberal Arts, Chinese University
At the end of the event, Zhang Chu expressed his heartfelt thanks to the guests and the audience: "I am very inspired by the teachers' analysis and evaluation of "Cloud Fall" from different angles, I am very happy that this novel can be liked by everyone, and I am very much looking forward to "Cloud Fall" being seen and read by foreign readers one day in the future, which is my little wish." ”
Group photo
Editor: Wang Ruofan
Xiao Yuanling
Second trial: Fan Jinfeng
Third trial: Hu Xiaozhou