Starting from the National Outstanding Short Story Award, the number of awards in the Chinese literary circle has been increasing day by day since the reform and opening up. These awards include the National Outstanding Novella Award, the National Outstanding Drama/Opera/Opera Script Award, and the Mao Dun Literary Award.

, there are also awards activities organized by magazines such as the Contemporary Literature Award, October Literature Award, and Huacheng Literature Award.

The large number of awards activities reflects the fervent development momentum of domestic literature in recent years.

The Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award is sponsored by the Literary and Art Association. In terms of scale, it is a national awards event, but this award is somewhat unique from the announcement of the list of judges.

Seeing this list of judges who are very different from other literary awards, many people in the literary world and literature lovers couldn't help but talk about it.

In this list of 25 judges, except for the chairman of the jury Feng Mu, the rest of the judges can be simply divided into two categories of people, one is literary practitioners and the other is non-literary practitioners.

The number of people on both sides happened to be 12:12, and you could tell it was a careful arrangement.

And it’s not just as simple as distinguishing literary practitioners from non-literary practitioners, writers, editors, critics, filmmakers, dramatists, scholars, ordinary readers——·

The judging panel seems to have divided the professional areas of the judges in more detail, and it is obvious that they are pursuing the diversification of the judges' aesthetic tastes and judging standards.

Such changes make many people feel refreshing and fresh.

Of course, if it's just this freshness, it won't create much of a response.

The Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award really aroused huge discussion across the country when the award regulations were announced together with the list of judges.

Among them, one of the "award settings" is particularly eye-catching:

1. The Zhuang Chongwen Literature Award is selected every two years.

2. The Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award has the following awards: Best Novel Award (a bonus of 100,000 yuan), Best Novella Award (a bonus of 100,000 yuan), and Best Short Story Award (a bonus of 100,000 yuan). Each award

Only 1 winning entry

Chapter (department).

Looking at the literary awards in recent years, the prize amount of the Mao Dun Literature Prize is relatively large. The prize is 5,000 yuan, which is almost seven or eight years’ salary of an urban worker.

But the prize money for the Zhuang Chongwen Literature Prize is as high as 100,000 yuan!

In recent years, with the continuous development of the economy, the term "household with ten thousand yuan" has gradually become popular among the people.

The so-called "ten thousand-yuan households" naturally refer to those who were the first to become rich in the wave of reform and opening up, and such a group of people is only a very small group of people in a big country with a population of one billion.

If you earn tens of thousands of yuan, you can already stand at the top of the country's economic pyramid. So what is the concept of 100,000 yuan?

That's 100,000-yuan households! This is almost a huge amount of wealth that most Chinese people cannot obtain even after working for a lifetime.

The prize money for a literary award is so generous, which not only makes many domestic writers red-eyed, but also attracts the attention of many ordinary people.

Let the public have a profound understanding of what "the book has its own golden house",

Write a novel (a novel) and win an award, and you will no longer have to worry about making money in this life.

Many writers or simply amateur writers have already imagined such a scene.

Therefore, after the award regulations for the Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award were announced to the public, the award quickly had an alias in the literary world:

Retirement Award.

It means that if you win the award, you can retire.

Such an alias undoubtedly entrusts the beautiful fantasies of writers and literature lovers.

Due to the unique composition of the judges and the huge bonus, in less than half a month, newspapers, magazines, television and other media across the country reported on the establishment of this award.

These reports have caused the Zhuang Chongwen Literature Award to receive huge attention and discussion since the beginning of the award evaluation, and the popularity remains high.

In addition to the above two factors, the special preliminary selection mechanism of the Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award has also attracted some people's attention.

The preliminary selection for this award actually attracted thousands of college students across the country as preliminary judges, which is another innovation in domestic awards activities.

Novelty is novelty, but quite a few people think this move is not safe.

There are so many well-known writers, but critics don't invite them. Instead, let college students serve as judges. What qualifications do they have?

But before the opposition voices of these people could gather into public opinion and put pressure on the jury, the preliminary election for the Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award had ended.

After one month of selection and discussion by more than 50,000 college students from literary societies in 50 universities across the country,

Finally, the shortlist for the Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award was submitted to the jury.

"Petpep! These college students these days are really extraordinary!"

Wang Meng looked at the list in his hand and couldn't help but sigh.

In the evaluation process of the Zhuang Chongwen Literature Award, the form of the preliminary list and the final list of major universities are exactly the same. Each list has only one short, medium and long work (part).

This form is tantamount to delegating power to college students, and these powers should originally be in the hands of the jury.

At the beginning, some old comrades among the jury members did not understand Lin Chaoyang's persistence, including Wang Meng.

In their view, the judging panel has become almost half a decoration, so why bother with it? It is better to just let the college students vote.

Now, Wang Meng somewhat understood Lin Chaoyang's thoughts.

College students have short social experience and are impatient in doing things. These are their shortcomings, but this group also has its advantages.

The average quality is high, the aesthetic level is online, the execution ability is strong, and the most important thing is "give it a little sunshine and it will shine"

Take the nomination list from Wuhan University that Wang Meng holds in his hand as an example.

The best short story was nominated for "Food for Dog Days" by Yanjing writer Liu Heng, the best novella was nominated for "Little Baozhuang" by Shanghai Wang Anyi, and the best novel was nominated for "The Ancient Ship" by Shandong writer Zhang Wei

》.

In terms of quality, these three works can be said to be the best batch of works that have emerged in the domestic literary world in the past two years.

Among them, Liu Heng's "Food for Dog Days" has previously won the National Outstanding Short Story Award.

Therefore, this nomination list is no problem in Wang Meng's opinion, but if it is like this, it will not make him praise it.

After all, everyone praises good works, and these works have already been recognized by readers. What if those students were selected according to the crowd?

The real reason why Wang Meng praised this list was after seeing the reasons for the nomination given by the students.

According to regulations, each nominated work (part) must be written by the nominating unit with a reason for nomination of no less than 1,000 words.

The nomination list in Wang Meng's hand was only one page, but the reasons for the nomination were more than 30 pages long.

The longest reason for nomination is for the novel "The Ancient Ship", with more than 8,400 words. It is more of a literary review than a reason for nomination, and the level is quite good.

"".—It is also about writing a family history. Compared with Mo Yan's "Red Sorghum", the main reason why we want to nominate "The Ancient Ship" is to appreciate the author's breakthrough in content and characters.

In contemporary literature, we rarely see works about family history, and even less about TG. This may be a controversial work, but it does not prevent it from being a good work.

Ancient people often use the past to learn from the present in their compositions, and "Ancient Ships" deeply reflects this.

Looking around the current literary world, apart from "Crossing the Guandong", there is only "The Ancient Ship" that can explore the soul journey of the peasant class with such courage and ambition while embracing the real economic reform.

To sum up, we believe that "The Ancient Ship" should be nominated for the best novel in this Zhuang Chongwen Literary Award."

Wang Meng put down the letter in his hand and sighed again: "There are talented people among college students!"

"Let me see!" Cui Daoyi said, taking the nomination list in his hand and turning it over.

Wang Meng looked toward the window, where Lin Chaoyang and Xie Jin moved two chairs and sat on their own, chatting about the nomination list they had just read.

"Wang Shangshu, I have a question to ask you."

Just as he was slipping away, a voice sounded beside him. It turned out to be Lu Xu, the youngest judge in the jury.

"I've told you so many times, don't call me your job title. We are all judges here, so just call me Lao Wang!"

Lu Xu had a strange expression when he heard this. Wang Meng also noticed something was wrong and smiled freely.

"Call Lao Wang, just Lao Wang. What do you think, Xiao Lu? Let's discuss it with each other."

Lu Xu was a little flattered. He suppressed the nervousness in his heart and asked Wang Meng: "I have read the list of nominations submitted. Among the nominations for novels, the ones that impressed me most were "The Ancient Ship" and "The Ordinary World"."

Part one.

I have read both novels. To be honest, I personally prefer the first one of "The Ordinary World". This novel is closer to my own experience and the reality of today's society.

But I also feel that the plot of the first part of "The Ordinary World" is a bit vulgar compared to "The Ancient Ship", and the writing is also rough.

This is my first time as a judge for such a big literary award, so I have no experience——"

Lu Xu smiled sheepishly when he said this, and Wang Meng also smiled in return, with an easy-going look.

"Xiao Lu, it's great that you can think about the problem in such detail. On the one hand, it is personal aesthetics, and on the other hand, it is professional. It is not easy to balance.

We are all judges now. I am not qualified to give you advice. I can only give you my personal opinions——"

"Say." Lu Xu made a gesture of listening.

Wang Meng said: "You are now a judge, and everyone in this jury has the same identity. Isn't your personal aesthetic a professional perspective?"

Wang Meng's words made Lu Xu thoughtful.

He glanced at this lucky young man, and he could understand Lu Xu's psychology very well.

A young man with almost no writing experience and only a relatively large amount of reading suddenly plunged into the literary award jury, and it was inevitable that he would be a little frightened.

While Lu Xu was deep in thought, Wang Meng glanced at the clock hanging on the wall, and unknowingly it was already 9:30 pm.

Wang Meng's current main job is as a minister of the Ministry of Culture, with a side job of writing, and he also works part-time at the Literary Association.
To be continued...