Yan Lianke

Yan Lianke

Yan Lianke, born in August 1958 in tianhuyaogou, Song County, Luoyang City, Henan Province, is a contemporary Chinese writer. He is Xian Weijian, Professor of Chinese culture and professor of Humanities at the Institute of higher studies, Hong Kong University of science and technology.

He graduated from Henan University in 1985. In 1991, he graduated from the literature department of the PLA Academy of art. In 1992, he joined the Chinese Writers Association. In 1997, he published the novella "mm / DD / yyyy". In 1998, he published the novel "the time of sunshine". In 2003, he published the novel Shou Huo, and in the same year, he won the third Lao She literature award. In 2006, he published the novel Ding Zhuang Meng. In 2008, he published the novel Ode to elegance. In 2011, the novel four books was published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 2013, he published the novel "Shatian Zhi". In 2014, he won the Kafka literature award. In 2016, he published the novel "the sun dies". From 2018, enjoy the special allowance of the State Council. In 2020, he won the 7th Newman prize for Chinese literature.

Character experience

In August 1958, he was born in tianhuyaogou, Songxian County, Henan Province. After enlisting in the army in 1978, he successively served as a soldier, platoon leader, secretary, secretary and creator of Jinan Military Region, a screenwriter and first-class writer of the Second Artillery TV Art Center.

In 1980, he began to publish his works. In 1982, he was promoted and sent to the Sino Vietnamese border to participate in the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. He graduated from the Department of politics and education of Henan University in 1985. In 1991, he graduated from the literature department of the PLA Academy of art.

In 1992, he joined the Chinese Writers Association. In 1997, he published the novella "mm / DD / yyyy", which began to attract literary attention. In 1996, he won the first Lu Xun Literature Prize for his novel golden hole. In 1998, he published the novel "the time of sunshine".

In 2000, he won the second Lu Xun Literature Prize for his work, month, day. In 2003, he published the novel shouhuo, which attracted wide attention in the literary world. In the same year, he won the third Laoshe literature award and the second Dingjun Biennale literature award, and was shortlisted for the sixth Maodun literature award with the help of sunlight flowing year. In 2006, he published the novel Ding Zhuang Meng, which became famous overseas. In 2008, he published his novel Ode to elegance, which caused widespread controversy.

In 2011, the novel "four books" was rejected by more than a dozen mainland publishing houses and could only be published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 2013, he was nominated for the international Booker Prize for literature, won the Malaysian flower trace world prize for Chinese literature, and "influence China's 2013 cultural figure of the year"; in the same year, he published the novel "Shatian Zhi".

In 2014, he won the Kafka Literature Award for his Czech language version of four books. In 2015, the Japanese version of the novel shouhuo won the Japanese twitter literature award. In 2016, with the English version of the novel four books, he was nominated for the international Booker Prize for literature for the second time.

In 2016, he published the novel Rixi, and won the sixth dream of Red Mansions award on July 19. In 2017, he was nominated for the international Booker Prize for literature for the third time by virtue of the English novel "the story of the explosion".

On November 17, 2017, he was awarded the honorary doctor of literature at the 25th degree awarding ceremony of Hong Kong University of science and technology. In 2018, he began to enjoy the special government allowance of the State Council. In June 2020, she published her prose collection "they"; in October, she won the seventh Newman prize for Chinese literature.

Main works

novel

Collection of works and novels

Essays and essays

A collection of essays

(reference materials:)

Creative features

subject

Return to hometown

As a native farmer writer, Yan Lianke has a profound understanding of the poverty and uncontrollable fate of people's lives brought about by the instability of the output of land resources. Therefore, how to escape from the land has become an important theme throughout Yan Lianke's novels. This is obviously not only related to Yan Lianke's peasant background and childhood memory, but also closely related to the rapid development of the economic trend of reform and opening up and the influx of Western civilization. Yan Lianke once said that writing is to escape from the land. Therefore, "living in the city" has become the value judgment and life choice of the rakou mountain people in Yan Lianke's novels. In order to get rid of poverty, they rush to the city one after another. However, after experiencing all kinds of baptism of urban life, the disappointment and pain of escaping from the hometown and the painful price for it make this kind of escape end in despair and confusion, so "returning to the hometown" becomes the doomed destination of the son of escape.

The theme of suffering

Yan Lianke's novels from "emotional prison" to "Sun extinguish" always take the disaster prone "Palou mountain" as the narrative background. In Yan Lianke's novels, "Palou mountain" shows a kind of rigid state of barren and remote natural environment, decadent and vulgar real order, and thick and gloomy traditional ethics and morality, where natural disasters and man-made disasters never happen No matter in the long period of famine, or in the face of incurable diseases and irresistible power, rakou mountain people are always suffering from the double oppression and torture of physical and mental suffering. In Yan Lianke's novels, the writing of suffering is from the hopeless suffering of individual struggle to the suffering of the whole village. This kind of suffering is directly connected with everyone's life in the balou mountains. Therefore, to get rid of suffering means to survive and to stay away from death. This kind of survival at the cost of life further deepens the practical significance of Yan Lianke's suffering theme.

Death theme

The theme of death in Yan Lianke's novels can be taken care of from two aspects: the tragic images of death in historical circumstances and the images of death groups in reality. First of all, Yan Lianke often uses historical events as the writing background in his narration of death. While re reflecting the historical reality, he achieves an extreme description of death, and then shows the author's thinking and examination of the historical reality and the original meaning of life. In Yan Lianke's novels, the most typical one is the description of the great famine and famine. The historical disaster is a more fatal existence for the originally suffering people in laoleng mountain. At the same time, the author often attributes the death of characters to real factors such as disease, sleepwalking, power and so on. These real factors that lead to death are presented by the author in the way of allegory. Therefore, the death of characters is often represented as an "abnormal death".

Theme of resistance

Yan Lianke's novels show the spirit of fighting against despair. First of all, the people of harou mountain in Yan Lianke's works were born with all kinds of tragic fates, such as disease, death, suffering and power devastation. They are faced with all kinds of fatalistic and irresistible disasters. Although they often show a kind of ignorance in knowledge, they never give up their instinctive desire for health, survival and prosperity. Therefore, unremitting struggle has become a human being They are constantly looking for the motive force of hope. No matter in the face of various diseases, famine, or crazy power squeeze, the people of harou mountain show their tenacious vitality and desire for survival. Secondly, in Yan Lianke's writing, there is always a conflict and confrontation between the modern culture represented by the city and the traditional culture represented by the countryside. Yan Lianke's anxiety and resistance to the process of modern civilization is shown in this confrontation.

artistic characteristics

Deicism and realism

In his creation, Yan Lianke abandons the inherent superficial logical relationship of real life, and seeks a kind of reality that does not exist, that is invisible, and that is covered by reality. The connection between the spirit and reality is not the direct cause and effect of life, but more depends on the soul and spirit of human beings (the spirit of reality and the connection between the internal relationship and the entry of things) and the special imagination of the creator on the basis of reality. There is a saying that one is not a bridge between reality and reality. The imagination, fable, myth, legend, dream, fantasy, magic change, transplantation and so on in the soil of daily life and social reality are all the methods and channels of realism through reality and reality. "God" is mysterious, magical, specific to. In creation, there are skills such as absurdity, fable and magic, which are the "bridge" to achieve "reality"; reality is the new reality and new reality existing on the other side. Yan Lianke's creation of "God realism" always describes the real life of a specific group of people in a specific environment. Many of his works will be involved in history and reality, exploring "reality" through "God", revealing the real life through the absurdity and fable of the story content; "God realism" draws on and absorbs magic realism, surrealism, exaggeration, absurdity, fable and so on The plot of the novel is exaggerated to the extreme.

Absurd narration

In Yan Lianke's novels, the complex reality and Yan Lianke's wonderful imagination form the basis of absurd narration. All kinds of fantastic and surreal plots make his novels show obvious absurdity. The plots and characters of his novels are both true and unreal. By describing or exaggerating the fantastic stories, his novels achieve absurd and incredible effects, thus truly and profoundly expressing the real world behind the absurdity. In the specific novel world, Yan Lianke describes all kinds of absurd stories and characters, but these absurdities are not traceless, but exist in real life, which is Yan Lianke's distorted and exaggerated realism. In Yan Lianke's creative practice of constantly seeking innovation and change, absurdity has gradually become an obvious element and symbol in his works

Chinese PinYin : Yan Lian Ke