Mo Yan in Conversation with Gurna: About Storytellers

　　China News Service, Beijing, March 11, Title: Mo Yan Dialogue with Gurna: About Storytellers

　　China News Service reporter Gao Kai

　　"All writers are storytellers." "But writers also have many important tasks besides telling stories, and they must express their own thoughts in their works." On the 11th, at the Yingdong Academic Hall on the Haidian Campus of Beijing Normal University In the lecture hall, Mo Yan, the Chinese writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (2012), talked about "writers" like this.

　　Gurna, the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Literature and a British-Tanzanian writer, strongly agrees with this.

He also emphasized that "stories are not just descriptions of events, they also reflect a way of people looking at the world."

　　On that day, a dialogue event jointly organized by the School of Literature of Beijing Normal University, the International Writing Center of Beijing Normal University and Shanghai Translation Publishing House was held here.

Two Nobel Prize winners, Mo Yan and Gurna, exchanged their thoughts and insights on each other's works and literary creation under the theme of "Hometown and Foreign Country of Literature".

　　For a long time, Gurna's novels have mainly focused on the theme of refugees and described the living conditions of colonial people.

His masterpieces such as "Paradise", "Desert" and "Seaside" all focus on identity, racial conflicts and historical writing. The living conditions in the post-colonial era shown in them are considered to have important social practical significance.

　　As the first Chinese winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, many of Mo Yan's works are closely related to his hometown.

He once wrote, "The impression left on me by my hometown is the soul of my novel."

　　Talking about the significance of hometown to their respective creations that day, Mo Yan said that for writers, hometown is a broad concept. His early novels undoubtedly described hometown, but the experience of hometown must be continuously expanded. As writers create With the extension of experience, the expansion of the radius of activities, and the broadening of horizons, everything in the world can be included in the scope of his hometown.

Mo Yan shared what he saw and heard on the east coast of Africa, his hometown in Gurna.

He said with a smile, “It will become the content of my Northeast Gaomi Township in the future.”

　　Gurna then extended the concept of hometown to "homeland".

He said, "This may be a place where we can have some resonance not only at the spiritual level and physical level, but also at a deeper level of senses and perception." This resonance often forms inspiration for creation.

　　Gurner talked about Mo Yan's novel "Red Sorghum" that day.

He said that in order to better understand this work, he learned a lot about the relevant historical background. "It ("Red Sorghum") talks about what ordinary people are like under those big historical backgrounds. I like it very much." Very rich language description, including all narrative methods, such as the description of the wedding scene and other scenes, I really like the atmosphere of this book."

　　In Mo Yan's view, a major feature of Gurna's works is that he starts from a small place and expands it into a huge problem. Mo Yan believes that this is the specialty of the writer. "A writer will not be like a historian." Like a scholar, he describes a huge change in an all-round way, displays a war in a three-dimensional way, describes changes in dynasties, and various grand plans of politicians. Writers often start from people, starting from small figures, and expand to express history. , era, this is where we should learn together, from the small to the big, from the narrow door to the broad world."

　　Gurna landed in Shanghai on March 5 and started his first trip to China. Beijing had also visited Ningbo before.

He said that his trip was not only to appreciate the beautiful China, but also to have a deeper understanding of what Chinese readers think of his works.

　　Talking about the commonalities of literature among different cultures, Mo Yan said that day that the reason why literature can go global and the works of writers from one country can be accepted by readers from other countries is that they all have common human values ​​and they all describe There are many common emotional bases among human beings.

(over)