Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 580 Preliminary Review of the World Chinese Literature Award

The first round of voting took place in the afternoon of the opening ceremony. The fiction group and the prose and poetry group met in groups. Zhang Yanqian and other staff members distributed the printed voting sheets to each member of the two groups.

The voting sheets are also divided into two groups: novels and prose and poetry. One sheet contains the names of all long, medium and short stories, and the other contains the names of prose and poetry works. There is a small box behind each work. If you agree that the work will enter the next round, just put a check mark at the back.

There were a lot of entries, and they were written densely on a long list. All the participants looked at the titles of the works one by one, and ticked the ones they thought were good.

In fact, the selection rules had already been notified to every member of the reading class in the form of letters. Many people had already judged each work at home. Some members even took out the materials they had prepared at home and just drew according to them.

The same is true for Fang Minghua, otherwise it would be easy to confuse the 300 novels.

But despite this, the voting took a whole afternoon. It was not until six o'clock, when it was almost time for lunch, that the staff collected all the ballots that had been issued, and then worked overtime in the evening to count the ballots.

In order to ensure fairness and justice and prevent voters from committing fraud for personal gain, the jury office also specially invited two comrades from the Xijing Notary Office to monitor the voting.

The meeting continued the next morning, and the voting results were soon announced: 15 novels, 33 novellas, 65 short stories, 59 essays and 17 poetry collections received more than half of the votes and successfully entered the next round of selection.

Wow, I actually wiped out more than half of it!

Fang Minghua was secretly surprised when he saw the data.

However, the works he had his eye on all received more than half of the votes and successfully entered the next round. There was no doubt that the literary value of these novels was still relatively high. It would be a joke if they were eliminated in the first round.

The second round of discussion will follow. The atmosphere in this round is much more lively, and everyone often argues fiercely over the pros and cons of an article.

Second round, third round
Finally, on January 23, the preliminary review meeting of the first World Chinese Literature Award Reading Class released the list of candidate works to the media in the form of a general announcement.

Five works of each literary genre were published, and among these published works, several are particularly eye-catching.

The novel, "Crying in the Rain" by Yu Hua, is the first novel by Yu Hua, a representative of avant-garde writers.

Among the short stories, "Fragrance of the Strange Mountains" by American writer Butler was published in full in the first issue of "Yanhe" in 92 as a recommendation by the editor-in-chief. This was also the first time that "Yanhe" published an article by a foreign writer after its establishment.

Among poetry collections, Luo Fu's "Moonlight House" and Haizi's "Selected Short and Medium-length Poems of Haizi" are very popular.

In addition, there are two selected articles in the prose group that are particularly eye-catching.

Shi Tiesheng's "I and the Altar of Earth" and Yu Qiuyu's "Mogao Grottoes".

The former is a long philosophical and lyrical essay, while the latter is a cultural essay that has been particularly popular in the past two years.

"Hey, Minghua, which essay do you think is most likely to win the award?" Bai Miao asked Fang Minghua in the Writers Association compound.

The Writers Association held a meeting today. During the break, the topic of conversation was naturally the list of nominees for the Chinese Literature Award which was just announced in Guangming Daily.

After hearing what Bai Miao said, Fang Minghua asked, "You are a member of the prose and poetry group of the reading class. After repeated discussions, you must have a deeper understanding than me, right? Which one do you think is possible?"

Bai Miao was quite outspoken.

"I am more optimistic about Mogao Grottoes. I think this essay captures the essence of the cultural essays you advocate."

Before Fang Minghua could speak, Jia Pingwa took over the conversation.

“Mogao Grottoes is good, but it is still inferior to Shi Tiesheng’s I and the Altar of Earth.”

"why?"

The words in Mogao Grottoes are very beautiful and the rhetoric is rich, but the intention of this essay is not as good. Jia Pingwa lit a cigarette and continued:
“Through these gorgeous words, we see a series of beautiful and intoxicating paintings in rich colors, but we cannot see a deeper interpretation and transcendence of life or human nature itself.

"The author expresses his infinite longing and pride for the heyday of the Tang Dynasty in a worshipful manner, so "our nation finally has such a dynasty, finally had such a moment, the beauty of individual life art is obscured by the grand historical theme and cheap national self-esteem, so "we once had" we have accumulated for more than a thousand years, among which there is only mechanical stacking, and a great loss of three-dimensional multi-dimensional reflection, etc."

"In essence, Yu Qiuyu's aesthetics can only float on the surface of decoration, but cannot interrogate the soul and reveal the true color of life. Of course, this is also a rare cultural essay."

Jia Pingwa talked nonstop, and Fang Minghua secretly praised him.

He is indeed a master of essay writing and can see the pros and cons of this essay at a glance.

"Minghua, what's your opinion?" Bai Miao threw the question to Fang Minghua again.

Fang Minghua smiled and said, "Actually, what I want to say is that this article "Mogao Grottoes" is indeed good, but the author has published several similar essays in magazines, such as "Taoist Tower" and "Yangguan Snow", but Shi Tiesheng's "I and the Altar of Earth" is the only one of its kind."

As a result of this debate, none of them were members of the jury.

The busy work before the Spring Festival is finally over, and everyone can celebrate the New Year happily.

Another happy thing during the Chinese New Year is that the TV series "Yanjing People in New York" is broadcast twice a week during the prime time of CCTV-1.

After arduous negotiations, Song Tangtang, on behalf of Shengshi Film and Television and CCTV's Zhu Taizhang, sold the first broadcast rights at a price of 51 yuan per episode, as CCTV's opening drama of the year.

Tonight, Fang Minghua and Song Tangtang sat in the living room, watching the TV series on TV.

It begins with a man speaking the classic line in English in a deep voice, and English and Chinese appear on the screen.

"If you love him, send him to New York, because it is heaven; if you hate him, send him to New York, because it is hell."

Then came Liu Huan's pure, clear, and long voice:

"I've been chasing you for thousands of miles

But you don’t care.”

Hearing this song, Song Tangtang smiled and said, "Minghua, Liu Huan really likes the lyrics you wrote. He said it is a perfect match for the song he wrote, and he also said he wants to work with you in the future."

"No, no, I'm just interested for a moment, I'm not a lyricist." Fang Minghua said modestly.

In history, the lyrics of this song seemed to have been put together by amateurs Feng Xiaogang and Zheng Xiaolong, but unexpectedly it became a classic.

Just copy it.

Song Tangtang was obviously in a very good mood today. She snuggled up to Fang Minghua and talked enthusiastically about the TV filming.

Because another film invested by Shengshi Film and Television, "Raise the Red Lantern", also achieved remarkable results.

Last year (September 1991), the film was first released to the public in Italy and Canada, followed by Sweden, France, Italy and the United States. It was released in mainland China on December 9 last year.

The global box office is expected to reach 300 million US dollars!
300 million!
The production cost is only 400 million RMB, which is only 78 US dollars at the current exchange rate.

Of course, box office is not the most important thing. The film has won the Silver Lion Award, the Febici Award, the Women's Film Award at the Venice International Film Festival, and was one of the top ten Chinese-language films at the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards.

Now we are aiming for this year's Academy Awards, the 36th Italian David Awards!
Zhang Yimou couldn't stop laughing.

As a producer, Song Tangtang was naturally in a good mood.

"Hey, Minghua, what do you think Zhang Yimou is going to shoot? I want to continue working with him." Song Tangtang said.

"You can ask him. It's no use asking me." Fang Minghua answered casually.

"That's not necessarily true. Now Zhang Yimou tells everyone he meets that you are his top screenwriter and the script depends entirely on you. If you don't write the script, what will he shoot?"

Oh my god.

Fang Minghua suddenly couldn't laugh or cry.

If I don't write the script, Zhang Yimou won't make a movie?!
(End of this chapter)