Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 4 - Question: to return home following the writer's search for life, "the original landscape"

　　Xinhua News Agency reporters Bai Ying and Zhai Xiang

　　Jia Pingwa’s Shangzhou village, Alai’s Jiarong Tibetan area, Chi Zijian’s Mohe North Pole Village, Bi Feiyu’s Subei Water Town, Liu Zhenyun’s Zhongyuan Yanjin, and Mo Yan’s Gaomi Northeast Township. The documentary series "The Hometown of Literature", which premiered a few days ago, followed six contemporary Chinese writers back to their hometown to find the "original landscape" of their lives, and also allowed the audience to experience the famous landscape in the territory of contemporary Chinese literature.

　　"Hometown is the starting point for writers. We track and record the process of writers returning to their hometowns and explore how they can transform their hometowns of life into hometowns of literature." said Zhang Tongdao, director of the film and director of the Documentary Center of Beijing Normal University, "I look forward to the audience. Finding our own literary hometown through this documentary is our spiritual hometown, poetry and distant place."

Hometown is the starting point for the writer

　　Jia Ping, who finished writing "Full Moon", was sunken into a daze. He found his "hometown" Shangluo, so he walked along the Danjiang River, down to Danfeng, and walked to Shangnan. During the day, he went to villages and villages, and at night he wrote in villagers’ homes. . And his latest novel "Mountain" has expanded from Shangluo to Qinling area.

　　Alai once walked on the land of Malkang for a long time, reading every river, every valley, visiting the stories of 18 toasts, and even met the descendants of the toasts, but he did not expect that the novel "The Dust Settled" was so wonderful. .

　　What makes Liu Zhenyun unforgettable is the scene of reading a book in Yanjin cornfield when he was young: a rural girl was grooming by the river. The sunset illuminates the river and the girl's face, which inspired him to write "Tapu". This is the turning point in his life and the starting point of literature.

　　Mo Yan extracted natural geographical elements such as Jiaohe, Shiqiao, sorghum, and carrots from his hometown, and also excavated humanistic elements such as Maoqiang, clay sculptures, dusty New Year paintings, and folklore, and integrated world literary experience and artistic imagination to create Gaomi Dongbei Township is a warm and rich literary kingdom.

　　"The hometown of the writer does not only refer to the country of the parents, but the place where the writer spent his childhood and even his youth. This place has the blood of your mother when you gave birth, and this place is where your ancestors are buried. The place is your blood." Mo Yan said.

　　Zhang Qinghua, the executive director of the International Writing Center of Beijing Normal University, pointed out that behind every accomplished writer, there is a back or outline of his hometown, Jiangnan to Lu Xun, Beijing to Lao She, Xiangxi to Shen Congwen, and Shanghai to Zhang Ailing. Unique meaning.

　　"The childhood memory as direct experience is of decisive significance to the creation of writers. The hometown has created the unique temperament and life experience of these writers." said Meng Fanhua, chairman of the Beijing Literature and Art Critics Association. This is in sharp contrast to the current creative trend of indirect experience. , It has an important guiding role in the literary creation methods that go deep into life and take root in the people.

The positive interaction between literature and sister art

　　In 2016, due to the release of two films adapted from Liu Zhenyun's novels, "I'm not Pan Jinlian" and "One Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand Sentences", they were called "Liu Zhenyunnian" by the market. This phenomenon in the literary and art world was also included in "The Hometown of Literature".

　　In fact, the works of the six writers in the film have all been adapted into other art forms. Jia Pingwa's "Happiness", Alai's "Dust Settled", Bi Feiyu's "Tsing Yi", Chi Zijian's "Right Bank of the Ergun River", Bi Feiyu's "Tuina", Liu Zhenyun's "Reviewing the Past 1942", Mo Yan's "White Dog Swing" has been adapted into film and television works, Liu Zhenyun's "A Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand Sentences" has been adapted into a drama, and Mo Yan's "Red Sorghum" has been adapted into Jin Opera, Ping Opera, Henan Opera, and Dance Opera.

　　Zhang Ali, chairman of the Shaanxi Film Association, believes that "The Hometown of Literature" once again shows the benign interactive relationship between literature and sister art forms: in the era of popular culture, literature nourishes film and drama, and film and drama feed back literature and expand Its influence.

　　The documentary "The Hometown of Literature" itself is a marriage of literature and film. As a poet and scholar, Zhang Tongdao gave the film a different creative perspective.

　　"This documentary is actually doing a kind of cultural research, exploring why these writers created such works and became such a style." said Hu Zhifeng, vice president of Beijing Film Academy. The film presents the writer's psychological and spiritual world and daily life. Life also has important historical document value.

Homesickness is a tribute to a common experience

　　Not every writer has a deep enthusiasm for the proposal of returning to his hometown; when he returns to his hometown, the writer's emotions are truly recorded by the camera.

　　Because his father was adopted, Bi Feiyu claimed that he did not have his hometown and he did not want to return to the village where he was born. But when he was standing outside the Yang Family Primary School where he was born, putting together the fragments of his memory, he suddenly patted his forehead, turned his head with a sound of "Ah", turned back after a long silence, wiped the red eyes and said : "It's here."

　　Because of excessive logging, the hometown experienced the disappearance of virgin forests and the deterioration of the environment with frequent mudslides. For more than ten years, Alai did not want to go home and even "hated this place." But sitting at his home in Somo Township again, holding his mother's hand, he couldn't cry.

　　"If you go back often, it is not homesickness. My hometown is very beautiful, but I don't want you to let me stay here." Alai said frankly in the documentary.

　　Li Jingze, vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, believes that the complex sentiments of Chinese writers towards their hometown represent the cultural roots of the Chinese. After the reform and opening up, countless people have left their hometowns to go far. This is out of yearning for a better life, and it has also promoted the continuous development of the country.

　　"It is in this kind of leaving and returning, leaving and looking back, hometown is not only the geographical scenery and the entity of life, but also the foundation of our life, full of spiritual power facing the future." Li Jingze said, "Homesickness It is a universal emotion in this era of rapid change and constant migration, and a respectful look back and cherishment of the life and history we have experienced together."