Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 634 Symposium on The Piano in a Factory
"I went to Pengcheng once and had dinner with a few friends. One of them was also engaged in real estate development. When we talked about this, others envied the big money made in real estate, but he sighed and said, who knows the difficulty of it?"

"To develop real estate, we need to acquire land, right? Farmland is easy, but what I'm most afraid of is something like a village in the city. It's very difficult to do. If the price is too low, the people won't agree. If it's too high, they can't stand it. If you delay it any further, the project will fail. You have to resort to other shady means..."

Zhao Hongjun talked about a lot of things he saw and heard, and Song Tangtang was shocked.

Finally, there was silence in the room.

After a while, Fang Minghua patted Zhao Hongjun on the shoulder and said, "It's good now. There's no end to making money. We just need to focus on book publishing and film and television production."

"I think so too. Let's create more spiritual food for society, hehe."

After returning from Haikou, Zhao Hongjun rushed to Shanghai within a few days and looked for a suitable place in Pudong New Area to build the Shengshi Book Publishing Building.

Song Tangtang brought the staff of Shengshi Film and Television and went in and out of the Planning Commission, Urban and Rural Construction Bureau, Land Bureau and other departments in Xijing, preparing to build a photography base belonging to Shengshi Film and Television near the Nanjiao TV Tower.

Fang Minghua is also not idle. He will rush to Yenching soon. A seminar on his novel "The Piano in a Factory" will be held in Yenching.

"The Piano in a Factory" was jointly published by Shengshi Books and Hainan Publishing House a month ago and was launched as the fourth work in the "Rag Tiger Series".

According to Su Bin's publicity plan, in addition to holding book signing events in Yenching and Xijing, another highlight is to hold a work seminar in Yenching.

In this era, after publishing a book, famous writers always hold a seminar on the work, invite a group of literary critics to comment on it, and then issue a few press releases in various media to expand the popularity and influence of the work.

Seminars were held for the first two books in the "Rag Tiger" book series created by Shengshi Books, "White Deer Plain" and "Wasted City".

In particular, the delegates to the meeting believed that Chen Zhongshi's "White Deer Plain" was "a landmark masterpiece." The president of the People's Literature Publishing House, Chen Zaochun, who attended the meeting and is an expert in Lu Xun studies, praised the novel highly and once wrote an article in the People's Daily analyzing the content and writing techniques of the book.

Although some erotic descriptions in the book caused controversy among some people, it did not become a big deal and instead accelerated the book's sales. This made Shengshi Books and Chen Zhongshi breathe a sigh of relief.

The symposium on "The Piano in a Factory" was held at the China Modern Literature Museum.

At that time, the Museum of Modern Literature had not yet moved to Shaoyaoju, Chaoyang QU, and was still located in the west courtyard of Wanshou Temple on the West Third Ring Road.

Wanshou Temple may seem desolate, but it actually has a bit of culture. There is an ancient road in the east, with a few ancient tablets left beside it, but the writing has become blurred. The newly built Chinese Theater in the north is very beautiful, and there are always some performances in the theater at night.

When Fang Minghua arrived, Su Bin of Shengshi Books, as the organizer, had already arrived. Many people were invited, including He Zhenbang, a professor at Lu Xun Academy of Literature and a famous literary critic, Lei Da, writer Wang Meng, Li Jun, the then director of the Modern Literature Museum, and more than ten others.

Li Jun is also a famous screenwriter and writer. His novel "The Yellow River Flows East" won the second Mao Dun Prize.

Of course, there are also reporters. Su Bin invited reporters from the People's Daily, the largest official newspaper in China, to attend the seminar, which shows the importance they attach to this seminar.

The meeting lasted for one day. At the meeting, delegates evaluated the novel from different perspectives. They praised the novel for describing real life with postmodern writing techniques and believed that it was a rare masterpiece reflecting current social life.

In terms of narrative structure, the novel adopts a dual-thread narrative technique, revolving around the two images of "piano" and "chimney" that are sometimes concrete and sometimes abstract, gradually deepening individual will into an elegy for the industrial age.

This narrative technique not only breaks the convention, but also shows the social changes and twists and turns of personal destiny in the industrial age through the interweaving of the explicit clue of "piano" and the implicit clue of "chimney".

By the afternoon, the discussion was basically over and the atmosphere in the meeting room became lively, with people starting to chat in groups of three or four.

The so-called gossip was basically related to literature. When everyone talked about some works in the literary world in the past two years, He Zhenbang was heard talking with a smile.

"Today, I attended a seminar on Minghua's The Piano in a Factory. Some time ago, I also attended a seminar on Jia Pingwa and Gao Jianqun's new book. Last year, I also attended a seminar on Chen Zhongshi's White Deer Plain. It kept me busy."

"I'm talking about Minghua. You people from Qin Province are coming in full force. Why are you all writing long novels? My goodness, are you planning to launch an expedition to the east?"

At this time, Wang Meng interrupted and said, "Professor He, if we talk about the Eastern Expedition, this should be the second time for Qin Sheng. I remember that around 1987, Minghua published "Crossing Guandong", Jia Pingwa wrote "Fuzhuo", and Lu Yao was even better, writing "Ordinary World". The literary world jokingly called it "Qin's Eastern Expedition."

"This time they are even more powerful, with more people. I guess they are not only heading east, but are also preparing to invade the six kingdoms."

Everyone laughed after hearing this.

Indeed, after entering the 1990s, Qin Province writers have emerged as a new force. Last year, Chen Zhongshi shocked the literary world with his novel "White Deer Plain". Later, Qin Province writers published many novels one after another:
"Wasted City" by Jia Pingwa, "Love and Hate in Bali" by Jing Fu, "Love Destiny" by Cheng Hai, "The Last Hun" by Gao Jianqun, and the last one is "The Piano in a Factory" by Fang Minghua, which caused a sensation in the literary world.

Fang Minghua was of course humble after hearing this and was very happy in her heart. It was a pity that Lu Yao was absent this time as he was still at home concentrating on writing "Collapse".

Everyone was chatting casually in a lively atmosphere, but although the conversation was unintentional, the listeners were attentive, and one of the participants took note of it.

Her name is Han Xiaohui. She is a newspaper editor and a well-known essayist. She is also a reporter for Guangming Daily!
After the meeting, the People's Daily reported the news of yesterday's seminar on the "Literary Theory" page on the third day.

Of course Han Xiaohui saw it. It was written quite well, but she felt that something was missing.

Fang Minghua's "The Piano in a Factory" is indeed well written, but there have been many excellent works by writers from Qin Province in the past two years, right?

She remembered that in 87, three writers from Qin Province published three works. Although the number was relatively small, two of them won the Mao Dun Literature Prize.

This time it’s even more impressive, with six volumes published in one go!
Who knows how many Mao Dun Literature Awards will appear here in the future, as well as the newly established World Chinese Literature Award? !
(End of this chapter)