Who is the author of Last Year's Tree?

Last year's Tree is a famous work by the late Japanese fairy tale writer Shimei Nanzhi. The author told us a very sad and touching story in a short space. A few years ago, when I gave lectures in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru, Malaysia, every time I read this sincere and profound work, many listeners (students, parents and teachers) were moved to tears.

The story of this fairy tale is actually very simple: winter goes and spring comes, and a bird flies back from the south to find her good friend, a tree, but the tree is gone. It turned out that the tree was cut down and transported to the factory, made into matches, and the matches lit the fire ... The bird promised to sing to him after the tree came back, but I didn't expect to see only the roots left there. The bird inquired about the whereabouts of his good friend again and again, searched again and again, and finally found the lamp lit by the match; The bird opened its eyes wide and "stared at the lamp for a while" affectionately. "Then, she sang the song she sang last year and gave the lamp."

Some people may think that the theme of this work is "environmental protection": we should take good care of trees and protect them, and should not cut down trees indiscriminately. This is of course good, but I think this fairy tale is more important as a literary work, because it vividly describes and praises the deep love and pure and loyal friendship between people.

The special style of fairy tales lies in that they do not directly describe and reflect social real life like novels and reportage, but reflect various lines and images in real life through artistic techniques of imagination and fantasy, thus pinning some emotions and thoughts. Last year's Tree is about a bird and a tree, but it actually shows people in life and reveals people's thoughts, feelings and morality. Among them, Birdie's frankness and commitment, as well as her deep affection for her friends through persistent tracking and searching, are really touching.

Different from many works, the story ending of this fairy tale is not "all happy", but because of the unfortunate experience and tragic result of "Tree", which casts a tragic tone on the whole work and can produce an emotional shock effect.

In terms of artistic techniques, the plot design of this fairy tale adopts the form of chain repetition commonly used in folk literature, and the translation by Sun Youjun, a famous fairy tale writer and translator, is extremely concise and fluent, which greatly enhances the readability of the work.