A Yuan: Making Literature be the Power of China

Editor's note: On November 30, the 10th National Congress of the Chinese Literary and Art Association and the 9th National Congress of the Chinese Writers Association opened at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the opening ceremony. General Secretary Xi Jinping standing in the overall situation of the party and the country, standing on the historical height of the national revival, standing in the clear position of the party and the people, profoundly discussed the the important position and unique role of literature and art in the current history, further pointed out the right development direction of literature and art.

As the writer representatives, our school teacher Hu Xin and Yuan Ping attended the meeting. After listening to the speech of General Secretary Xi Jinping, they are highly encouraged and have deep sentiment. Today, we sort Professor Yuan Ping’s experience in this meeting for you as follows:

Making Literature be the Power of China

A Yuan

“The fortune and vein of literature is interlinked with the fortune and vein of nation.” A great country needs great literature, a great era needs great literature. Without it, the country isn’t meaningful for the world and the era isn’t meaningful for human history. If France didn’t have Balzac, Hugo and Proust, it will not be today’s France; if Russia didn’t have Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, it will not be today’s Russia; if America didn’t have Hemingway and Faulkner, it will not be today’s America. Politics, economy and technology are obvious power for a country, while literature is another power that is deeper, more enduring and more meaningful for history and whole world.

“People need art, art need people too”, “people are not abstract symbols but the communities constituted by persons, who have true feelings, love, hate, dreams, inner conflicts and sorrow”. As a result, country needs the strength of literature, individual needs it too. If literature didn’t nourish people’s mental world, readers and authors are easy to be coarse and fragile. In the case, litterateurs should write living, moral and warm works to supply strength for people.

Profile:

Yuan Ping, with the pen name A Yuan, is the professor of Chinese Department of Humanities College of Nanchang University, Vice Chairman of Jiangxi Writers Association and specially-appointed writer of Tengwang Pavilion. Her works include Zheng Xiu’s Operatic Circle, Yuchang Sword, Confucius Stands by the River, Marriage Life, The Wife of Teacher and so on, are reprinted by many periodicals and selected to a variety of annual picks. Her debut Changmen Ode was awarded Shanghai Literature Prize and Guyu Literature Prize, Zheng Xiu’s Operatic Circle was awarded the Chinese Literature Prize, Yuchang Sword was awarded the fourteenth Hundred Flowers Award of Novel Monthly and the fifth Beijing Literature Selection Award, Confucius Stands by the River was awarded October Literature Prize and the fifteenth Hundred Flowers Award of Novel Monthly. Her novel was selected to the ranking list of Chinese Fiction Institution for four consecutive years. The novel Marriage Life and The Wife of Teacher are the key support projects of the Chinese Writers Association, the full-length novel Shang Ye is the key support project of the Chinese Writers Publishing House.