The winner list of the seventh Lu Xun Literature Prize was released, and the award for short story was given to the Earthly Wonders (《俗世奇人》) unabridged edition by Feng Jicai, a renowned writer, painter, cultural scholar and the dean of Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art at Tianjin University.

After the news was announced, Mr. Feng received congratulatory messages from many friends, including one from Ekbair Migiti, a Xinjiang writer，who along with Mr. Feng won the Award of Excellent Short Story of China (predecessor of Lu Xun Literary Prize) in 1979. This reminds Mr. Feng of his feelings at that time:

"It was the first time that I won the National Excellent Short Story Award and it was with Ekbair Migiti, Jia Dashan, and Chen Shixu. We were all in our 30s, very young, very excited, and felt like we had reached a higher level, getting more attention. It was a feeling of fulfillment."

Mr. Feng Jicai is now 76 years old. He feels quite differently for receiving this reward. “I thought this literary prize actually belonged to the young people, so winning the award at my age was a kind of encouragement and comfort It is like people saying ‘the old man is OK, and he can continue to write’," Feng told the reporter and said thatthis reward helped shorten the distance between him and his readers.

"Over the past 20 years, I spent most of the time in preserving cultural heritage, writing only a couple of short stories sporadically and feeling far from the readers. It wasn't until 2014, as I got older, that I spent less time in the fields and more time in my study, that I picked up the novel again. Earthly Wonders is my first novel collection after I returned to literature writing, which brings me back to the readers and gives me the feeling of spiritual communication with them. And this is my best literary feeling right now.” said Mr. Feng.

Writing is a spiritual life, according to Mr. Feng, and now he's in it.

In fact, devoting himself to the protection of cultural heritage for more than 20 years, Mr. Feng seems to be far away from literature creation and readers, but literature has always been in his mind, and from time to time it emerges. When he was in the car on the way to an investigation, his thoughts turned to fiction and various ideas and inspirations came into his mind. But when the car stopped, he had to go to the field of folk culture, and the emerging literary inspiration disappeared. However, Mr. Feng has no regret, because he has always believed that the protection of national culture is more important than individual creation. "Besides, I have also subconsciously accumulated a lot of knowledge and understanding of life, culture, history and national spirit," said Mr. Feng. "Such accumulation will certainly be integrated into my literature in the future."

The Lu Xun literary prize, named after the great flag-bearer of China’s New Cultural Movement, Mr. Lu Xun was established in 1996. Its predecessors were "National Short Story Award" and other literary awards. Mr Feng Jicai has won this award four times:

Carved Pipe（《雕花烟斗》） won the 1979 National Excellent Short Story Award

Ah! （《啊！》）won the first (1977-1980) National Excellent Novella Award

Whip （《神鞭》）won the third (1983-1984) National Excellent Novella Award

Pearl Bird（《珍珠鸟》prose collection) won the National Excellent Prose Award in the new era (1989).

Translated by Bao Yanyan

Editors: Yin Wei & Doris Harrington