Chinanews client, Beijing, August 1st (Reporter Song Yusheng) "This is a shirt from 30 years ago. No other clothes can be worn. This one was too fat to wear at the time, but now it looks thin. Up."

　　On the last day of July 2020, Mo Yan's first new book "Late Acquaintances" was officially released after winning the Nobel Prize. At the online sharing meeting that night, Mo Yan told the host about his clothes like this.

Photo courtesy of People's Literature Publishing House

Mo Yan writes "Mo Yan"

　　Compared to this shirt with a sense of history, Mo Yan said, "This book should be longer than 30 years," because many of the characters in the book have the shadow of his elementary school classmates.

　　"This time back almost 60 years ago. The story more than half a century ago has continued to the present. The characters in this novel, like me, are slowly changing, growing, and maturing with the development of society."

　　In the same way, Mo Yan himself incarnates the characters in the novel. Mo Yan always loves to use the first person "I" in storytelling, and "Late Mature" continues this habit. It's just that the "I" of the new book mostly borrows the author's current age and identity.

　　Mo Yan said that he is not only the author of "Late Mature", but also "as a character in the work, deeply involved in this book".

　　But is the "me" in the book Mo Yan himself?

　　"This is at least a part of me." Mo Yan said, daring to put the real name in the novel, he was ready to accept everything, no matter which angle he reads.

　　"I and Mo Yan in the novel are looking at each other. I am looking at him and he is looking at me. Sometimes I may not do this in my life, but in the novel he did it; what he didn't want to do in the novel I may have done a lot in my life."

　　In Mo Yan's view, these two "Mo Yan" are not only like facing a mirror, like an entity facing a shadow, but more like a person seeing one's own clone, like a hair pulled out by a grandson monkey. .

Data map: Mo Yan. Photo by Wei Liang

What new wine is in the old bottle?

　　As Mo Yan's first new book after winning the Nobel Prize, 12 stories are collected in "Late Mature People". And these stories are related to his hometown.

　　According to Mo Yan, these stories are all "novels from the perspective of the return of intellectuals."

　　He himself said that there have been many novels with such a returning perspective, and many of them have become classic works. "I was born and raised in Gaomi Dongbei Township, and then left this place, and came back several years later. When I started writing such works in the early 1980s, I began to use this perspective. By now, I have written. This perspective is still being used for more than 40 years."

　　Obviously, from the perspective of literary creation, this is an "old bottle", but at the same time there is "new wine" in the bottle.

　　The first is that the author himself has changed. "My age has become older, and my horizons may have become broader. It is difficult to say whether my ideological quality has become deeper, but it is for sure that it has become more complicated. Because the Nobel Prize in 2012 added to my original authorship A more complex color."

　　Mo Yan said that at this time, in a society like this, when a person with such an identity returns to his hometown, the people and things he encounters will be much richer.

　　"Returning to the hometown in splendor", naturally also witnessed all kinds of human affection.

　　Therefore, we can see the plot in the book: "Mo Yan" in the novel returned to Gaomi Northeast Township after winning the Nobel Prize, and found that his hometown became a tourist attraction overnight, and the film and television city "Red Sorghum" went up. From the beginning, the copycat version of "bandit's den" and "county yamen" suddenly appeared, "and the five shabby houses in my family, which have also been put up grandly and become attractions."

　　Of course, there are writers’ exaggerations, but we can also "find a rough prototype" from previous news.

　　In addition, it is the first time that Mo Yan introduced the "newcomers" of the current society-Internet "big coffee" high-level participation in his works. The Gao Cun in the story made his fortune by selling rumors. "Such characters are created by the times, and they have never appeared in my previous novels."

　　Mo Yan said that in the past seven or eight years, he has indeed had many feelings. It seems that only through such a perspective can he express his rich feelings in a literary way.

Data map: Mo Yan. Photo by Wang Xiaojing

"I hope I can mature late"

　　At the sharing session, the "late maturity" in the title of the book became a frequently mentioned word.

　　Mo Yan tends to interpret "late maturity" as "a state of mind that seeks innovation and change, and is unwilling to stand still too early."

　　He said, "From a literary and artistic point of view, I think that if a writer or an artist matures, stereotypes, and does not change prematurely, his artistic creation will come to an end."

　　"We all hope that our work can continue to change, and that we can constantly surpass ourselves, but it is very difficult. So in this sense, we don’t want to finalize ourselves prematurely, but we don’t want ourselves to mature prematurely. Be able to mature later, so that your artistic life and artistic creativity can be maintained longer."

　　But it is not easy to surpass yourself.

　　Speaking of current writing, Mo Yan said frankly, “I have been writing for more than 40 years, and now I am struggling. It is much more difficult than when I first started writing in the early 1980s.”

　　The difficulties that Mo Yan faced came from his demands of himself.

　　"First of all, I know more and more literature myself, and I know how many people have written it. Then I think, at least I should not repeat the methods used by others. The other is that the accumulation of my own works There have been more. My minimum requirement is that I don’t want to repeat what I have written in the past. So the longer I write, the more difficult I face."

　　Although his first new book after winning the Nobel Prize is a collection of short stories and short stories, Mo Yan said that he still "has a dream of a long story."

　　"I really still hope to produce a good long story in the last few years. But I think it must be different from before. Compared with the previous level of art, it is hard to say, but Different: the story is different, the era is different, and the language used is also changed. This should be very clearly pursued. I am working hard and hope that in the near future I can come up with a one that will be refreshing after everyone reads it. Novel."

　　Mo Yan said that in the past two years, he has read a lot of local chronicles in more than a dozen counties and cities around his hometown and visited many places. "If you want to write historical novels, I think these tasks must be done."

　　At the end of the online sharing session, everyone discussed the word "late maturity" again.

　　Critic Li Jingze said, "There is wisdom in the'late maturity', and it also represents the indomitable and struggling spirit of the old comrades. This spirit is reflected in the fact that it is clear that the front wave is on the beach, and when you roll and stand up, you turn into a back wave. This is the spirit of late maturity, and we all must carry forward it together."

　　The camera then turned to Mo Yan, who was laughing. (Finish)