Chapter 454: The First Mao Dun Literature Prize Winning Work Is

The Mao Award indeed had the confidence to become the number one major award in the Chinese literary scene.

First, the founder, Mr. Mao Dun, had the highest official status among literary workers before his death.

Secondly, the prize money was high, which could be said to be ridiculously high for this era.

Back then, Mr. Mao Dun took out his entire savings of 200,000, and the interest was used to issue prize money to the winners. Each person's prize money was as high as 3,000 yuan, and the bank interest rate at that time was also really high.

3,000 yuan was a hair on Wei Ming's nine bodies, but it was five years' salary for an ordinary worker. The total royalties earned by many creators writing a long novel over several years might not even be as much as this.

The Nobel Prize in Literature in the same era was even more powerful, 1 million Swedish kronor, equivalent to 20 years' salary of a Swedish professor.

And the prize money for the Mao Award kept rising later. In 2011, with the sponsorship of Li Ka-shing, it rose directly from 50,000 to 500,000. Liu Liu Zhenyun's *One Sentence Worth Ten Thousand Sentences* happened to be the winner of this Mao Award.

Although the Mao Award in the following sessions was a bit watery, the last Mao Award work with influence was Liang Gao Xiaosheng's *A Lifelong Journey*, but the amount of this prize money was still the best in the contemporary era, attracting countless people to flock to it.

And the award being watery might really be because there weren't that many excellent long-form literary works.

"Ma Xiaowei Laoshi." As soon as Wei Ming entered the Great Hall, he saw an acquaintance, Chen Chen Jiangong from the 77 Chinese Department of Peking University, who was also a member of the Writers Association.

"Old Chen!" Wei Ming chatted with him enthusiastically. Chen Chen Jiangong was now a professional writer for the Jingcheng Federation of Literary and Art Circles. It was a pity that he basically went into officialdom later and didn't leave behind works with enough influence. It was a pity. Among the students of these three sessions of the Chinese Department, the one with the greatest literary achievement was Liu Liu Zhenyun, who wasn't prominent during his time in school.

"Ma Xiaowei Laoshi, I, on behalf of the Peking University Chinese Department, am waiting for you to win the award." Chen Chen Jiangong finally said to Wei Ming. He looked even more confident than Wei Ming.

Actually, after entering the venue and taking his seat, Wei Ming could almost determine that he had won the award with high probability.

Because on his left was the 82-year-old Yao Yao Xueyin, with a head of silver hair,

On his right was Gu Hua, who wrote *Hibiscus Town*, only 40 years old, considered a young and strong faction in the literary scene.

When Gu Hua was studying at the training institute, Wei Ming invited them to dinner, and Wei Ming had a high evaluation of *Hibiscus Town*, believing it was the most excellent among the first Mao Award winners. However, Wei Ming was polite to Gu Hua, not appearing very close.

Wei Ming felt that a female editor cheating could be considered your man's nature, and going abroad to become a foreigner wasn't something worth shouting and killing, but you writing some things to rub heat and attract attention for the sake of making money was a bit too much. He was your Hunan fellow villager after all.

In addition, sitting with them were Wei Wei, who wrote *The East* and *Who is the Most Beloved*, Mo Mo Yingfeng, who wrote *General's Chant*, and Zhou Zhou Keqin, who wrote *Xu Mao and His Daughters*.

Wei Ming saw Li Li Guowen, who wrote *Winter's Spring*, sitting behind, and couldn't help but feel a trace of regret for him.

Although there was no limit to the number of winning works for the Mao Award, obviously the judges also knew that things were precious because they were rare, so they finally limited it to the number "six."

Except for the six of them, everyone in this row was basically a leader of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Writers Association.

Wei Ming, who had just passed his 21st birthday, still appeared too young among this group of people.

Fortunately, Wei Ming had spent a few months in the countryside, working hard and laboring, not so delicate in body and face, adding a point of thickness and stability.

Because of his physical condition, Ba Lao couldn't come to the scene. The one presiding over the award ceremony was Zhou Yang, who proposed in his speech to adhere to the "Double Hundred" (let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend) policy and promote the development of art criticism work, etc.

Art criticism was the way out and livelihood for many students in Chinese departments of universities across the country. If you can't write literature, can't you criticize literature?

After more than an hour of pre-shaking, it was finally time for the official award ceremony. Many people at the scene participated in the award evaluation work or had a good relationship with the evaluators, so the announcement of the results didn't cause too much surprise.

If Wei Ming hadn't been out of town for a while, he would have known the results long ago with his literary connections.

It was just unexpected that *The Human Righteous Path is Vicissitudes* was the first work mentioned, and Wei Ming was also the first to take the stage.

When awarding the prize, Chairman Zhou's evaluation of this work directly chose the content in the preface written by Mr. Mao Dun for this book.

"The so-called 'Righteous Path' has never been a plaque hanging high in the temple, but footprints trudging in the mud, cold sweat of betrayers waking up at midnight, and the roar of the silent finally erupting. Let us offer applause to Comrade Wei Ming, who consulted a massive amount of historical materials and documents and finally created this family and national epic masterpiece!"

Thunderous applause broke out in the audience. There was almost no one at the scene who hadn't read *The Human Righteous Path is Vicissitudes*. In the year since its publication, it had been reprinted many times, and the circulation of this book had exceeded two million sets.

Standing on the stage, Wei Ming received the purple copper medal, certificate, and prize money representing the Mao Dun Literature Prize.

It wasn't cash given. 3,000 was too much, and there were three thick stacks, and it appeared vulgar, so a passbook was given.

Wei Ming held the honor and looked at the audience. Besides Chen Chen Jiangong, he also saw Liang Zuo, who came with his mother, Sister Chen Rong.

In addition, there were editors of *People's Literature*, *Harvest*, *Contemporary*, *Jingcheng Literature*, and *October* who were familiar with Wei Ming, Wang Zengqi who had eaten Wei Ming's salted duck eggs, Sister Zong Pu whom he met at Peking University, Jiang Jiang Zilong who was once called the twin stars of reform literature with Wei Ming, Ye Xin who was the leader of educated youth literature, female author Wang Wang Anyi from Shanghai, Jia Jia Pingwa who rushed over from Xi'an, etc.

Looking at them, Wei Ming seemed to see his own path, seeing the envious eyes of some people, Wei Ming thought: Don't rush, it will be your turn.

Afterward, he made a brief speech, thanking the jury, missing Mr. Mao Dun, and recalling his brief acquaintance with him.

Then Zhou Zhou Keqin was invited to the stage, then Wei Wei, and Gu Hua was the last to take the stage. Sure enough, there were only six people in total, six works, among which the one that won the award for Yao Yao Xueyin was *Li Hong Zicheng* Volume 2.

Although this appearance order didn't explain the level ranking of the six winning works, looking at it comprehensively, actually the order shouldn't be arranged casually.

It wasn't according to the alphabetical order of the works, nor was it according to the author's age or the novel's publication time.

At the end of the event, the six winners and Chairman Zhou took a group photo together, and this activity was considered a successful conclusion.

The first session, there was no too much controversy, all were long novels with influence and reputation from 76 to 81.

Of course, there were still dozens of long novels published during these years. Winning the award with these six would definitely make these six works receive more attention, more research, and more criticism.

For example, Xie Jin saw *Hibiscus Town* because of this and had the idea of adaptation, but recently he also saw a medium-length military novel published in *October* called *Wreaths at the Foot of the Mountain*.

And in several years, with the name of a Mao Award work, at least it would have better sales than works of the same era. Of course, whether it could withstand the test of history and still be sought after by readers decades later was hard to say.

Most of the winning works were written about this era, having timeliness. The stories described and the emotions depicted were no longer empathized by later people.

Of course, having big hit film and television work adaptations was another matter.

But at least now, when the Mao Award list was announced, these six books in Xinhua Bookstore immediately ushered in a rush to buy. Many books actually still had stock, but *The Human Righteous Path is Vicissitudes*, which sold best among the six books, was really out of stock, so the People's Literature and Art Publishing House immediately started another reprint, this time directly printing 500,000 sets.

500,000 sales was a lifetime for many books.

Even if they were all winning works, *The Human Righteous Path is Vicissitudes*, which did the best in story and legendary nature, was also the best to sell.

Wang Shuo entered the Xinhua Bookstore, sneered at the surging crowd, and didn't follow the trend, but bought a copy of Wei Ming's medium-length novel *In the Heat of the Sun*. He had read it in a magazine before, and now bought a copy to collect.

This book was worth reading again and again, very worth savoring.

Nowadays, there was a wave of individual business across the country. Wang Shuo, who liked to make money, felt that writing novels made money too slowly, and dead wages were also meaningless, so he resigned and opened a roast duck restaurant with his friend Shi Xiaoman. If this was done well, what was 3,000 yuan? 30,000 yuan was also him.

However, a friend he knew, Ma Ma Weidu, had now become an editor of *Youth Literature*. In order to ask Wang Shuo for a manuscript, he blew him up to the sky.

Coinciding with the release of the Mao Award results, Ma Ma Weidu looked for him again: "My Teacher Wang, you still have to write novels. The next Wei Ming is you!"

He held the newspaper and pointed to Wei Ming's photo: "Look, how high-spirited, and there are 3,000 yuan to take. How many ducks do you have to make for 3,000 yuan."

"Go, go, go, don't write, don't write, don't block me from making ducks. I want to make this roast duck restaurant the Oriental Plaza of the roast duck world." 【4

If he didn't write it, there were plenty of others who would.

Dentist Yu Hua in Haiyan County saw the news about the first Mao Dun Literature Prize in the *People's Daily*. Beyond the six novels, he was most concerned about the 3,000-yuan prize money. He read it over several times to confirm it was 3,000 per person, not 3,000 split among six people.

"Three thousand! With three thousand yuan, why would I still need to work!"

Writing novels was too good. Yu Hua no longer hesitated and submitted his already-written short story, *The First Dormitory*, directly to *People's Literature*, the highest temple of literary journals. He was determined to be the second Wei Ming!

Yu Hua's move was somewhat overestimating his own abilities, but Liu Liu Zhenyun was quite well-prepared.

Having started work at the *Chinese Farmers' Daily*, he continued to hone his writing skills and had written his representative short story, *Ta Pu*, in advance.

He had revised and polished this story for a long time, also aiming for *People's Literature*. It told the story of a demobilized soldier's experience returning home to study for the college entrance exam.

Liu Liu Zhenyun was also a demobilized soldier, so this story had a certain autobiographical color.

But he was still uneasy, thinking that since Wei Laoshi had returned to the capital, he should go and pay him a visit.

In the end, Liu Liu Zhenyun found Wei Ming at his alma mater... or rather, his motorcycle.

Wei Ming was currently participating in the defense for his correspondence education.

He had actually written a graduation thesis titled *The Application of Electronic Computers in Library Management*. He hoped that Peking University would purchase a batch of computers and apply the latest foreign barcode technology to library management, thereby optimizing the process of students borrowing and returning books and reducing the workload for staff.

"Student Wei Ming, how did you come up with this idea?" asked Library Director Xie Daoyuan.