(Question about East and West) Mai Jia: Why is contemporary literature a channel for the West to understand China?
China News Service, Beijing, July 10th. Title: Mai Jia: Why is contemporary literature a channel for the West to understand China?
China News Weekly reporter Li Jing
The Chinese writer Mai Jia is conceiving a new work and wants to explore modern people's perception of feelings.
Since the publication of "The Sea of Life" in 2019, he has bid farewell to the subject of spy warfare he is good at.
Today, his spy war works are becoming popular overseas.
In 2013, Penguin Landon purchased the English version of "Decrypted" with a prepaid copyright of US$50,000 and included it in the "Penguin Classic Library".
The only works of Chinese writers included in this library are "Dream of Red Mansions", "The True Story of Ah Q", "Besieged City" and "Lust Caution". "Deciphered" has become the only contemporary Chinese literary work included in the library and has 33 editions. , English and Spanish translations are among the local bestseller lists.
The picture shows Mai's house.
Photo by Wang Gang, a reporter from China News Service Zhejiang Branch
The publication of "Deciphered" was not smooth that year. The manuscript was rejected 17 times, and it took 11 years to publish it.
Faced with today’s achievements, Mai Jia said in an exclusive interview with China News Agency’s “Question on East and West” in Hangzhou recently that as long as people face themselves truly and fully express themselves, one day the world they have created will be illuminated by others. Uniqueness will naturally be recognized by others.
The summary of the interview record is as follows:
"China News Weekly" reporter: Your work is very popular overseas and has been translated into more than 30 languages. It is said that "Deciphered" is still the world's largest Chinese work in the collection of libraries. It was named "The Economist" as "2014 World Top Ten", and the English version was included in the British "Penguin Classic Library". What do you think of the phenomenon that your works have become popular overseas?
Mai Jia:
It is certainly not easy to translate "Deciphered" into so many languages.
But it has such a good treatment today, and there are many coincidences. For example, I met a good translator. The classmate of the translator happened to be a good friend of the publishing director of Penguin Classics and had this opportunity.
Meeting a good translator and a good publishing company is equivalent to "being a well-known family."
A person who is married to a wealthy family has a different value, and publishing houses in other languages will naturally follow.
I think this is not my choice. Sometimes a book is like a person. It has its own life.
After more than ten years of waiting and tribulation for publication in China, "Deciphered" was actually translated into the world after being published in 2002, and it took another 12 years to wait. It was not sought after as soon as it came out.
But I think the premise is that this is definitely a good thing, and it can withstand a certain wait.
Some of Mai's works: "Deciphered", "Wind Sound", and "Conspiracy".
"China News Weekly" reporter: Because of the creation of a series of spy war novels such as "Decryption", "Scheming", and "The Wind", you have been labeled as a "spy war novelist", and you are also called "Chinese spy warfare" by netizens. The father of the novel". What do you think of this "label"? How would you rate your creative style?
Mai Jia:
My current creation is completely irrelevant to spy warfare.
Everyone always talks about spy warfare. In fact, I have already escaped from the spy warfare when I wrote "The Sea of Life". I wrote about the countryside and my hometown, but people still think I am writing about the spy war.
Therefore, it is actually more difficult for a person to "take off his hat".
"China News Weekly" reporter: You wrote your first novel "Deciphered" in 1991. At that time, the literary boom in the 1980s had receded and was replaced by a market boom. You started to write this novel at that time, and persisted for 11 years. There must be various difficulties in it. Why continue?
Maijia:
According to normal writing, it is impossible for a person to persist in writing something for 11 years in the face of this tumultuous era.
I have always insisted that I don't have so many choices in the face of reality. Writing is a physical memory brought to me by my childhood. It is a way for me to spend my leisure time and place myself. It has grown in my body.
In addition, my writing is a physical need.
If you write with fame and fortune, I think it is impossible for a person to withstand such a long time, and the whole youth is gone in a blink of an eye.
My writing is like some people like to play cards and some people like to exercise. That is a kind of life need of me.
There is another reason. Once a person wants to create, what he needs is not a little motivation, but a huge motivation to promote continuous writing.
In addition to having this desire, one has to have deep pain or deep love for a certain kind of person in this world. It will not work for one person alone. This will not last, only those who have a strong love or hatred for a certain whole. At that time, talents will go to create.
For example, why did so many writers explode with great creative power in the Republic of China?
Because they had a strong desire to express their deep love and bitter hatred for China at that time and the semi-feudal and semi-colonial motherland.
I feel very lucky. After graduation, I was assigned to an intelligence agency and met a group of people. I still respect them deeply. I love them and feel sympathy for them.
As I met this group of people, I suddenly felt that I had a strong desire. I wanted to let others know the noble qualities in them and their humble, bleak reality.
This is a very specific reason why I am really going to create and continue to create.
Data map: Readers flip through books in front of the bookshelf.
Photo by Wu Junjie
"China News Weekly" reporter: The heroic endings in your works are not very good, why not give them a happy ending? Or is it related to your own experience?
Maijia:
It has something to do with my outlook on life.
The ending of a person, whether it is a person in life or a person we make on paper, is ultimately two endings, either happy or sad. I said that my pleasure point is extremely high, and I can’t accept a person using one at the end. It ends in a very happy way. I think it is not true. It is not an ending that belongs to my emotional identification.
In fact, I don't think there is absolute sadness and joy: Rong Jinzhen went crazy in the end, but he broke the code in this way, and solved the black secret key by destroying his body.
He is crazy. It is a tragedy in itself, but the password is broken, and it is a comedy again. Where do we talk about tragedy and joy?
When I write, I always remind myself not to look at people and the world absolutely. The more dialectical, the more truthful and closer to the truth.
I hope my readers do the same.
"China News Weekly" reporter: Some people think that happy works are relatively shallow, while tragic or darker works are more profound. Do you agree?
Mai Jia:
I don't accept this point of view. I can't say that the tragedy of suffering is profound. I think I need any kind of work.
Idealism, romanticism, critical realism, including modernist exploratory works all need to be profound.
This is life, all things in the world, not one of a kind, but a hundred flowers.
For a specific writer, I feel that if you want to find a tone that fits your outlook on life, you ask me to write comedy or particularly inspirational. I may not be able to write it, and I feel a little bit reluctant.
But for someone else, let him write tragedy, he may not write well either.
I think that a person writes works that conform to his own outlook on life or the world. After all, writing is about self-expression. It is enough to express the inner world, the true knowledge of life, and oneself.
Face yourself calmly and truthfully, and express yourself more fully, one day when the world you create is illuminated by others, your uniqueness will be recognized by others.
For example, when I started writing about heroes like Rong Jinzhen in 1991, people did not accept it. I remember one of the reasons why "Decrypted" was repeatedly rejected was: "What age is it now? Still writing heroes?" But in a blink of an eye, the times have changed again. Ten years later, readers have become tired of low-level writing and personal writing. After 2000, people began to call heroes again. In a certain sense, My work is in line with the call of the times and readers.
This is the meaning of perseverance.
Data map: The former residence of American writer Hemingway in the eastern suburbs of Havana, Cuba.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Mo Chengxiong
"China News Weekly" reporter: It is said that Kafka, Camus, Hemingway, Faulkner, Borges, Nabokov, Hesse, etc., especially the Argentine literary master Borges has a deep influence on you. The American "New Yorker" once commented that you "combine your unmatched writing talent with Borges' temperament ingeniously". What influence did these foreign writers bring to your creation?
Mai Jia: The
writer is the reader first, and reading is the best preparation for writing.
Creation comes from appreciation. If you don't have the ability to appreciate and appreciate, you will definitely not be creative.
My writing is a kind of creation, but before I create something, I must learn to appreciate others, so I read a lot of works, all kinds of classics.
I think this is the most convenient way, or even the only way, to cultivate one's own appreciation and appreciation.
Data map: Lake Baikal, Russia. Two cyclists in the distance broke into the screen.
Image source: Visual China
"China News Weekly" reporter: Although there are differences and gaps between Eastern and Western civilizations, literature knows no borders. In the world, what do you think are the commonalities of good literary works? In your opinion, what role can literature play in promoting in-depth exchanges between the East and the West?
Mai Jia:
"Deciphered" can be translated into languages of more than 30 countries, indicating that it is a global theme. I remember an article in "The Economist" specifically talking about "Finally, there is a book that can be read without looking up a dictionary. Chinese novels".
The entire West is full of misunderstandings and misunderstandings about China.
Many of our novels are about folklore history. They don’t understand the history and culture of China. They even need to look up the dictionary when reading. However, the code-breaking written in "Deciphered" is a worldwide profession, and the characters who decipher the code are also all over the world. Especially caring for a curious group of people.
Because it is a worldwide theme, I think this is also a favorable condition for "Decryption" and "The Dark Calculation" to enter the world.
Another point is that China has become more and more influential in the world in recent years, and the more the world wants to know us, this is also a big background.
When the world needs to understand China, literature is the best choice.
People have a good impression of a country, usually not through news or politics, but literature.
For example, the Chinese people in the 1950s were particularly fond of the Soviet Union, because in those years, we read a lot of Soviet literature. Through their literary works, we learned about the Soviet Union, Siberia, Lake Baikal... Suddenly we were full of yearning for that land.
Our generation watched a lot of European and American works. Although they have never been to those countries, they are full of good feelings.
Balzac said that novels are considered the secret history of a nation.
Literature is also the most objective and popular way to understand a nation, a country.
China is now becoming stronger and stronger in the world, and the world's curiosity towards the Chinese is also increasing. At this time, literature will become a channel for them to understand the Chinese.
(Finish)