Beijing, 9 Sep (ZXS) -- Interview: Interview with Qiao Ye, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award: Just soliciting his own poems
China News Agency reporter Gao Kai
"Life itself is rich enough, going deep into life is always valid, and the material is endless, especially in China, there is no shortage of good stories." In the view of writer Qiao Ye, the most trustworthy creative path is to "go to the scene".
The 8th Mao Dun Literature Award was announced in Beijing in August this year, and among the five winning writers, Qiao Ye is the only "post-70s" writer, and she is also the first "post-70s" female writer in China to win the Mao Dun Literature Award.
"Finding sentences behind closed doors is not poetry, just collecting its own poems", Qiao Ye recently gave an exclusive interview to China News Agency, quoting ancient poems and bluntly saying that he has a deep understanding of this.
Qiao Ye's award-winning work "Baoshui" was published in November 2022 and is regarded as his long-form breakthrough work. The novel tells the story of Baoshui Village, deep in the Taihang Mountains, from a traditional village to a new type of village featuring cultural tourism. Winter-spring, spring-summer, summer-autumn, autumn-winter, the four chapters are like a long scroll, telling the complex aspects of rural life in the four seasons.
Qiao Ye said that "Baoshui" is the most patient novel he wrote, and he used seven or eight years to "run the village" and "bubble village" in the early stage. "I wanted to write this novel from 2014 until 2022." Qiao Ye said that the "running village" during this period was "I don't want the novel I wrote to be an example, I hope that the Baoshui village in the novel is quite common in countless villages in the new era, so 'running village' is to look at more rural samples." So, from his hometown Henan to Jiangnan, and then to the northwest and southwest, Qiao Ye visited many villages in China.
Qiao Ye's "bubble village" is mainly deeply rooted in Henan, "I identified three points, and then I observed it for a long time, went to live when I had time, maintained close contact with the villagers, and kept in touch even when I couldn't go to live, which was very important." After getting acquainted, the villagers can talk to you openly. ”
Qiao Ye has always believed in going deep into life in her creations, and she emphasizes that this can not only be done by arriving at the scene. "It's too important to really go deep into it, and if you don't go deep but think you do, this misunderstanding will be terrible."
Qiao Ye was born in a rural area and has a very different affection for the countryside, and now the relationship between the Chinese countryside and the city makes her full of interest, and the two are no longer the state of separation as before, but gradually indistinguishable from each other in various blends, interactions and collisions.
In "Baoshui", Qiao Ye tells all aspects of a year's life in Baoshui Village. In her view, the development process of China's contemporary countryside is "very lively and mobile", "various cultural tourism projects in the countryside attract urban people, and the development of transportation and information allows rural people to have a lot of understanding of urban life, but at the same time, the two sides collide with a lot of interesting things in this increasingly blurred blending of boundaries."
As Mao Dun Literature Award judge Zhai Yejun commented, "Baoshui reproduces a complex village that cannot be described in a word. ”
Qiao Ye believes that literature is anthropology, to write human nature, to write human stories. After a long period of in-depth understanding, she has seen the subtle changes of people in the various changes in China's contemporary countryside, "These subtle changes, as specific people's emotional experiences, are what I want to present the most."
"This year in "Baoshui" can be seen as a slice of contemporary Chinese rural life, I hope it is as wide and rich as possible, but there is also a long shadow behind the slice, and I hope to write the sense of history and culture of the countryside." Qiao Ye said.
From Lu Xun and Shen Congwen to Zhao Shuli and Liu Qing, vernacular literature has always had an unusual position in the history of modern Chinese literature, and is considered to be literature that resonates with the fate of Chinese at the same frequency. "My creation must be in this big chain and tradition, there must be inheritance, but at the same time, there must be new characteristics, so that it has the value of writing." In Qiao Ye's view, the current rural landscape in China has undergone great changes, "I want to write about the new changes I see and feel."
"Only by going inside the countryside and taking a closer look reveals what a rich and plump novel it contains. The countryside is undergoing great changes, and all the great changes must be attached to the details. This detail is constructed by the small things of countless ordinary people, like a trickle that finally becomes a river, and every drop of it is a treasure. Qiao Ye said. (End)