Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 567 Generous Bonus

The next morning, Fang Minghua drove Song Tangtang to the train station, accompanied by her secretary Xu Hui.

I first went to Yanjing with the crew, and then gathered with other actors to fly to New York, where the filming lasted for four months.

After seeing his wife off, Fang Minghua did not go home but drove to the compound of the Provincial Writers Association. Sure enough, he saw Wang Zi in the jury office.

"Teacher Fang, you're back from a business trip to Hong Kong." Wang Zi greeted him hurriedly when he saw him.

Perhaps because it was during work hours, she was too embarrassed to call Fang Minghua uncle anymore, so she called him teacher like Li Hongying did.

Fang Minghua nodded: "Are you used to being here?"

"It's great. Sister Hongying takes special care of me." The girl said happily.

Fang Minghua didn't say anything. He took out the strawberry-flavored hard candies that he bought from Hong Kong and put a small bag in each office. Everyone started eating happily.

Zhang Yanqian was specifically responsible for the work of the jury office, so she took the initiative to report to him on the latest work progress.

"Under the arrangement of Professor Lu Yao, we have sent a call for papers to the People's Daily and Guangming Daily, which will be published on August 8."

"What about Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao and Taiwan's United Daily News?"

Fang Minghua asked again.

"The receipts have come in, and the Ta Kung Pao and United Daily News will also publish the article on August 8."

"In addition, Ms. Li Li from San Francisco also sent a fax saying that she has contacted The New York Times and The Times of Britain, and they will also publish our call for papers. The Yomiuri Shimbun from Japan also sent a fax."

Fang Minghua nodded with satisfaction.

Although it is a Chinese literature award open to the whole world, this is the first time the award is given. From the perspective of funding and feasibility, the event should not be too big.

We will solicit papers from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, Hong Kong, Macau, and the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. If the results are good, we will expand the scope of solicitation in the next step.

"Chairman Fang, this is the list of invitations that will be sent to major magazines and publishing houses. Please take a look." Zhang Yanqian said, and then took out a document from the drawer and handed it to Fang Minghua.

For selections such as the Mao Dun Literature Prize and the former National Excellent Short and Medium Story Award, apart from simply publishing a piece of news in the newspaper, notices are sent out to provincial writers' associations in the name of the China Writers Association, asking them to recommend their own works for the selection.

Fang Minghua's Chinese literature award is registered under the Qin Province Writers Association, so of course he cannot send a notification to the writers associations of other provinces, and he doesn't want to go through official channels.

In this case, it would be better to send invitation letters to major publishing houses in the name of the jury.

Contemporary, Harvest, Flower City. Joint Publishing in Hong Kong, Crown Publishing in Taiwan, etc.
Magazines include "People's Literature", "Wenhui", "Novel Monthly", "Hong Kong Literature" and Taiwan's "United Literature". They basically cover no less than forty or fifty famous literary publications and magazines from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong and Macau.

Fang Minghua took a glance and asked again.

"Has Lu Yao seen it?"

"Well, this was drafted by Lu Yao himself."

"Okay, after the call for papers is published in the newspaper, we will send invitation letters to these organizations!"

On August 8, two heavyweight domestic newspapers, People's Daily and Guangming Daily, as well as Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao, Taiwan's United Daily News, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, the United States' New York Times, and Britain's Times, simultaneously published a call for papers: "The first World Chinese Language Awards Call for Papers has officially started!"

征稿范围：1990年1月1日至1991年12月31日，在两岸三地任何一家杂志社公开发表的长篇、中短篇小说、散文、诗歌（诗集），都可以参加评选。

At the same time, during this period, non-Chinese literary works published around the world can also be entered into the award if they are translated into Chinese within the specified time limit for submissions.

投稿截止日期为1991年12月31日，然后进入评选阶段，获奖名单公布预计是在来年4——6月公布。

The call for papers also detailed the requirements for the works, the selection rules, the list of judges and their resumes, the list of reading class members, etc. In particular, the names of the judges are all well-known in the literary world.

Of course, what surprised readers even more was the prize money for the winning works.

Prize money for the winning novel: 100,000 yuan!

Novella: 80,000!
Sixty thousand pieces of short and medium-length novels, prose and poetry (collection)!

Including shortlisted works (five shortlisted works in each category will also receive a bonus of 5000 yuan!)

(Prizes won by non-mainland writers can be converted into U.S. dollars at the official exchange rate.)
As soon as the prize amount was announced, both readers and authors were excited!

Ten thousand dollars for a novel!
You should know that the winning works of the 5000rd Mao Dun Literature Prize, which was just held not long ago, were only worth yuan!
Some people even secretly compared it with the highest literary award in the English-speaking world, the British Booker Prize. It is said that the prize money for the winner is 8.7 pounds, which is only yuan in RMB according to the exchange rate at that time.

The prize money of the Chinese Literature Award is completely comparable to that of the Booker Prize!

The news from the outside world had not yet been fed back, but mainland writers were the first to get excited. Those who had published novels in the past two years and thought they were relatively good called and urged the magazines or publishing houses where they had submitted their works to recommend their literary works.

It’s probably not easy to win the award, but even being shortlisted is good.

5000 RMB is equivalent to the Mao Dun Prize.

However, some editors-in-chief of publishing houses or magazines are in a dilemma. The jury office has already sent an invitation letter and welcomes submissions.

However, there is another sentence added at the end: It is advisable to recommend three to five works of each type.

Is this to encourage recommendations or to limit the length?

Of course, there are also those who don’t care about these things. There is no hard and fast rule in the letter. What’s wrong with recommending a few more works? It just costs a little more for postage. Because the jury office stipulates that all submitted works must be sent five copies at a time, so that the jury members can read and exchange with each other.

As a result, packages and letters from various magazines and publishing houses came in like snowflakes. The daily task of the six staff members in the jury's office was to register them. For this reason, Fang Minghua simply donated the laptop computer given by Stephen Chow for the staff of the jury's office to use.

The staff of the jury will also conduct a preliminary review to see whether the publication time meets the requirements before mailing it to the reading class members distributed across the country.

Fang Minghua is also a member of the study class.

Besides him, those from Qin Province include Lu Yao, Jia Pingwa, Chen Zhongshi, Bai Miao and Wang Yu, editor-in-chief of Novel Review.

At first, some people advised him to become a judge directly, but Fang Minghua finally declined.

It’s better to keep a low profile since you are organizing it yourself, and let the big guys serve on the jury.

Fang Minghua's work began to get busy. Not only did he have to read the submitted works carefully as a reader, but he also had to write a written evaluation of each work, including the book's strengths and weaknesses, etc., and then wait for next year's reading class discussion to make a comprehensive evaluation.

At the same time, as the head of the jury office, I also have to handle some specific matters.

For example, today, I suddenly received a call from overseas.

"Teacher Fang, a Korean called you." Wang Zi ran to Fang Minghua's office and said loudly.

"Korean? International student?" Fang Minghua asked.

"No, he called from South Korea. His Chinese is really hard to understand."

In South Korea?

(End of this chapter)