China News Agency, Beijing, March 8. Title: Mai Jia: Chinese literature should not be too concerned about winning the Nobel Prize in Literature
China News Agency reporter Xie Panpan Tong Xiaoyu
How Chinese literature "goes out" is one of the hot topics in the literary world.
Where is the difficulty in "going out"?
How to break the circle?
China News Agency invited Mai Jia, deputy to the National People's Congress, vice-chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, and winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award, to answer the questions.
Excerpts from the interview are as follows:
China News Agency reporter: What content do you pay attention to this year's National Two Sessions?
Mai Jia:
What I am most concerned about is education.
Education is the foundation of a nation and the engine that drives our nation towards the future.
With the popularization of artificial intelligence technology, I think education will face a very big challenge, that is, knowledge-based and skill-based education will be weakened or even face the risk of being eliminated.
In the face of this situation, how to meet and even embrace changes in education requires the study of a large number of experts and scholars.
As a writer, I am also concerned about the topic of "going out" of Chinese literature.
If China wants to go global, it is inseparable from the "going out" of literature.
Literature is the best way to know a country.
Literature has a folk nature and has the internalization function of moistening things silently. It is objective, three-dimensional, full of thoughts and emotions, and is most easily accepted by foreign readers.
Especially today, foreign interest in China is increasing, and many foreigners want to know how contemporary Chinese people live and what they think.
This provides an opportunity for Chinese literature to go global.
Therefore, as writers, we must tell Chinese stories to the world through literature.
China News Agency reporter: Where is the difficulty in "going out" of Chinese literature? How to break the circle?
Mai Jia:
The most difficult period of Chinese literature "going out" has passed.
If a nation or a country wants to go to the world, translation is the bridge.
How to translate literary works into a language that is easier for foreign readers to understand and accept was a difficult problem 30 years ago.
However, with the rise of China, the whole world has set off a "Chinese fever", and a large number of sinologists have emerged, and this problem has been easily solved.
The current problem facing Chinese literature "going out" is insufficient progress, that is, the speed of "going out" does not match the speed of China's rise.
Although a large number of our literary works have been translated and have a certain influence abroad, compared with "Made in China", it still pales in comparison, and the acceptance of foreign people also needs to be improved.
How to use literary works to tell Chinese stories to the world?
I think we still need to pay attention to the method.
In the field of literary creation, there is the term "world writing", which means that while literary creation is based on the local, it must also have a global perspective, so that it can go out of the local area and win audiences around the world.
But many literary works only focus on the theme and ignore the form, so they can only rest on their laurels.
National, not necessarily global.
Just like photography, looking around the world, multi-camera positions are the general trend, and single-camera positions are not competitive; push-pull panning is a common method, and if a fixed-camera position is used, the audience will not be interested.
China News Agency reporter: How to make more and more Chinese people appear on the Nobel Prize for Literature altar?
Mai Jia:
We don't care too much about the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The fact that Chinese writers rarely win the Nobel Prize for Literature does not mean that Chinese literature is not good.
On the contrary, we can see that in recent years, Chinese literary works have been rich and colorful, and outstanding Chinese writers have emerged in an endless stream.
But any award will have emotional and even political overtones. The Nobel Prize for Literature is judged on Western values.
For writers, writing is not about winning prizes.
It is the responsibility of a writer to keep the reader in his heart, to constantly dig out the true feelings, and to express them with appropriate sentences, to show the true feelings and truths in the world.
China News Agency reporter: Recently, film and television dramas such as "Hurricane", "County Party Committee Compound", and "Mountain and Sea Love" have received good reviews. Does this represent the future direction of Chinese film and television dramas?
Mai Jia:
This is a very good phenomenon.
If you want more people to understand our nation, history and culture, and convey positive energy, film and television dramas are a good carrier.
In the past few years, there have been many "thunder dramas" and palace dramas on the screen, and the ratings are also good. We look forward to the flourishing of the film and television industry, but we must also be wary of such works becoming mainstream.
They ridicule history too much, digging into court life with a novelty-seeking mentality, which is too entertaining.
We need work that reflects real life and inspires.
"Hurricane", "County Party Committee Compound", and "Mountain and Sea Love" are all my favorite dramas. They are all realistic works reflecting real life, and the topics discussed are also the people's concern, concern, and attention. They "exploded", In reason.
But it doesn't mean that film and television works must be rigid.
The main theme work is not a political class or geography class, but a literary and artistic scene. It must be entertaining and entertaining, and subtly spread ideas to the audience. This is the most brilliant education.
Literature and art is to enjoy with the people, not to amuse oneself.
(over)