Where from Weixi

From Weixi (March 1933 - October 29, 2019), a native of Yutian, Hebei, was a contemporary Chinese writer who served as president and chief editor of the Writers' Publishing House.

Major works include the middle-grade novels Red Magnolia Under the Great Wall, White Sails in the Distance, and Eyes of the Wind and Tears, and the full-length novels Grass of the North and Toward Chaos.

Died in Beijing on October 29, 2019 at the age of 86 after a long illness.

Chinese name: From Weixi

Foreign name: WeixiCong

Nationality: Chinese

Ethnicity: Han Chinese

Birthplace: Yutian, Hebei

Date of birth: March 1933

Date of death: Oct. 29, 2019

Occupation: writer, scholar

Graduate School: Hebei Normal School

Major Achievements: served as a professional writer for the Beijing Municipal Federation of Literature

President and Chief Editor of Writers' Publishing House

Representative Works: Red Magnolia Under the Great Wall, White Sails Far Away, etc.

Personal Biography

Born in Daikantun, north of the city of Yutian County, Hebei Province, in 1933. He worked as a teacher when he was young, and later became a reporter and editor of Beijing Daily. Famous writer. Member of the Chinese Writers' Association.

Published his debut novel, On the Battlefield, in 1950.

Graduated from Beijing Normal School in 1953.

Published a collection of novels and essays, July Rain, in 1955.

In 1956-1957, he published a collection of short stories, The Morning of the Rising Dawn, and a full-length novel, Spring Dawn on the South River.

During the anti-rightist period in 1957, he was labeled a rightist for his outspokenness, and went through life's trials and tribulations for twenty years.

Returned to the Beijing literary scene in 1978.

In 1995, the eight-volume anthology From Weixi came out.

In 2000 the author's book-length documentary literature "Towards Chaos" trilogy, which looks back at the life of rightist labor reformers, was published, causing a strong reaction from the society.

Personal Honors

The Chinese novels Red Magnolia Under the Great Wall, White Sails in the Distance, and Eyes of Wind and Tears were awarded the First, Second, and Fourth National Awards for Chinese Novels; and the film The Tenth Bullet Hole was awarded the Ministry of Culture's First National Award for Outstanding Films. After that, the author has published long novels "Grass in the North", "Broken Bridge", "Wine Soul Going West", "Fugitive", "Naked Snow", "Turtle Monument", and middle grade novels "Folding Flowers on the Post Road", "Snow Falling on the Yellow River Silent", "Sacrifice of the Red", "The Man Who Holds the Camel", "Nose Memo". Snow Falling on the Yellow River is Silent" and "Wind Tears Eyes" won the First and Third Outstanding Chinese Novel Awards and Honorable Mentions of Selected Chinese Novels, respectively.

Personal Writings

Anthology

From Weixi's Personal Author Anthology (2002-2006) Beijing Youth Daily

A Paper Offering in Mourning of Yan Zhou2006/12/16

Conscience is Gold2006/11/11

With a Sense of "Surviving in a Different Place "2006/11/04

Memory of a Chinese Language Teacher2006/09/09

Touching "Ma Guo Li "2006/08/19

The Death of the Peacock2006/08/05

The Death of the Peacock2006/09/09 08/05

First acquaintance with the Yellow River cattle2006/07/15

Rounders turn themselves around2006/06/17

Yanzi Jie Huai Gu2006/04/15

Chess stalls in the city2006/04/01

Squares are at peace2006/02/18

The "Coal Hei Zi" is the most important of all. 19

Touching the Electricity2005/10/17

Mirror Apocalypse2005/08/12

Looking at the Clouds in Alishan2005/05/27

Thoughts on the Valley of Ruqiu, Qin's Pit2005/05/13

The Song of the Grasshopper on a Winter's Night 2005/03/11

Scenery from the South Window2005/01/28

The Emotional Tree2005/01/14

The Rooster Sings the World's Whitespace2004/12/31

Lijiang River 2004/12/03

Listening to Autumn2004/10/29

Five-Five Sentiments 2004 09/24/2004

Talking about eating "Monk's meat" 2004/08/20

At Xiao Hong's former residence 2004/07/09

Red Head Boat Chronicle 2004/05/28

America's search for antiquity 2004/03/12

Pointing to the The Wooden Crutch in the Sky2003/12/12

Celebrating Mr. Ba Jin's 100th Birthday2003/11/25

Sun Li in the Moonlight2003/07/25

The Fable of the Stars2003/03/07

The Girl Who Sells Mushrooms (II)2002/10/01

The Girl Who Sells Mushrooms (I) 2002/10/01

Leaving Masters in the Depths of the Landscape2002/07/16

Novels

July Rain (Novels and Essays) 1955, New Literary Arts

The Morning of the Dawn's Rise (Short Stories) 1956, New Literary Arts

Spring Dawn of the South River (Full-length Novels) 1957, New Literary Arts

The Tenth Bullet Hole (Chinese and Short Stories) 1979, The Masses

Mud (Chinese Stories) 1980, Guangdong People

From the Collection of Weixi's Middle Stories 1980, Zhongqing

From the Selected Novels of Weixi 1980, Beijing

Footprints Left on the Shanghai Bund (Chinese and Short Stories) 1982, Huacheng

The Clean and White The Sleeping Lotus Flower (Short Stories), 1982, Spring Breeze

The White Sail that Goes Away (Middle Stories), 1983, Sichuan People

Burning Memory (Middle and Short Stories), 1983, The Masses

Grasses of the North Country (Long Stories), 1984, October

Snow Falls on the Yellow River, Silence and Silence (Middle Stories), 1984, Literature Union

Folding Flowers on the Post Road (Collected Stories) 1985, Humanities

Literary Dreams (Literary Essays) 1985, Jiangxi People's Association

From the Collection of Weixi (Collected Stories) 1986, The Straits

Broken Bridges (Collected Novels) 1986, The Writers

From the Representations of Weixi (Edited by Wang Zhiwang), 1987, The Yellow River

From the Close-Up on the Novels of Weixi (Selected) 1986, The Mass

From the Special Features of Weixi (Selected) 1986, mass

Deutsche Reflections (collection of essays) 1989, China Huaqiao Publishing Company

Writing Career

From Weixi used to use the pen name Bizheng, from the tassel. After graduating from junior high school, he worked as an elementary school teacher, then as an editor and reporter of Beijing Daily, and began to publish his works in the 1950s, following Sun Li's artistic example, and before 1957, he published two short story collections, July Rain and The Morning of the Dawn, as well as a full-length novel, Spring Dawn on the South River, and was one of the representative writers of the Lotus Flower Dian School. Having encountered political ups and downs and tribulations for more than twenty years, he has a better understanding and experience of prison life. In the new period, he wrote many works, including the long novels "Grass of the North" and "Naked Snow", the collection of middle grade novels "Collection of Middle Grade Novels from Weixi", "Footprints Left on the Beach", "White Sails in the Distance", "Snow Falls on the Yellow River Silently", and "Folding Flowers on the Stagecoach Road", and the collection of short stories "Selected Novels from Weixi", and "White Sleeping Lotus Flower". There is also a collection of literary essays, Literary Dreams. Born in 1933 in a small mountain village north of Yutian County, Hebei Province, Cong Weixi was admitted to the Beijing Normal School in 1950 and began to publish his works in the same year. After graduation, he worked as a teacher, a newspaper reporter and a literary editor, and joined the Chinese Writers' Association in 1956. In 1956, he joined the Chinese Writers' Association and published two collections of short stories and one full-length novel, and in 1957, he was labeled a rightist in the anti-rightist struggle.

After his return to the literary world in 1979, he was the first to publish a dozen middle-aged novels depicting the life in labor camps, such as Red Magnolia Under the Great Wall, and was thus regarded as the father of "Great Wall Literature" by the literary world. After 1984, he shifted his main focus to the creation of full-length novels, and his 1985 full-length novel Grass of the Northern Country won the Outstanding Literature Prize four times in Beijing and China, while his 1986 full-length work Broken Bridges won the Outstanding Literature Bestseller Prize, and his 1989 anti-rightist memoir Toward Chaos drew a strong reaction. Later on, he completed the writing of three more full-length novels, Naked Snow, Drinking Souls Traveling West, and The Fugitive. In addition, he has also published a considerable number of short stories, essays and literary criticism and other types of works, is a hard-working writer. Some of his works have been translated into English, French, German and Japanese, as well as into Serbian, and in the late 1980s he was included in Who's Who in the World and Who's Who International, compiled in Cambridge, England.

From Weixi's works are mostly about the changing political life since 1957, of which the middle grade novel "Magnolia Under the Great Wall" is the masterpiece. The novel chooses a unique angle, starting from a story that happened in a prison during the Cultural Revolution, and exposes the dark reality that right and wrong were upside down and ghosts were rampant during the ten-year period of catastrophe with a strong sense of honor. The author does not generally expose the darkness, the development of events is closely linked with the mourning of the people's good Premier Zhou Enlai, therefore, what is shown in front of the readers is not only darkness and evil, but also light and justice. The whole work has the shocking power that evil does not suppress justice. The influence of this work was so great that the critics called the novels exposing the prison life in the period of the Gang of Four as "Big Wall Literature", and Weixi naturally became the most representative writer of this literature. Due to the drastic changes in the living environment and the transfer of creative themes, the new period of novel writing from Weixi has been separated from the "Lotus Dian School". The publication of the autobiographical novel "Naked Snow" shows that the influence of the "Lotus Dian School" of literature is still alive and well in the depths of Wei Xi's heart and in the lines of his writing.

Classic works

The Outlaws of Heaven is another long masterpiece written by Chinese writer Cong Weixi. The novel depicts the life of intellectual rightist fugitive Suo Hongyi as he wanders to the ends of the earth.

From Weixi's autobiographical full-length novel "Naked Snow", with a unique perspective, the creation of a fairy tale-like world, the narrative of prose poetry, a distinctive style.

The novel takes the 1940s Jidong land as the background, reviewing the childhood life of "I" from the age of four or five to twelve, and recording a silver dream buried in the snowy country, rich in cradle poetic feelings, and at the same time, through the whole book, there is also a virgin's eye to realize all kinds of real life and landscape. The author adopts a lyrical narrative discourse instead of a single plot structure, reconstructing a world of feelings that is bland on the surface but contains deep meanings inside. Small celery and the girl (monk) since childhood childhood, they have been two small and innocent to paint nail grass, play house, drilling broomcorn millet stacks, worship the city temple, burying fragrant jujube flowers, catching grasshoppers, and dialogue with the mountains, this full of chastity, childish fun of the play, is the most innocent, and also the most wonderful page, "it is like the crystal snowflakes in winter, like the clear dewdrops of summer; like a maple leaf in autumn, like a tender willow bud in spring," the author said. It is like a crystal snowflake in winter, like a clear dewdrop in summer; like a maple leaf in autumn, like a tender willow bud in spring", fresh and transparent, but also new and dazzling. They didn't know that men and women were different and looked at each other's pee-pee, so that Xiaoqin suffered the punishment of swollen buttocks, and my mother, who never hit me, also hit me with a flaming stick; they didn't know that the invaders were viciously picking up the foreign iron box, so that Xiaoqin was almost thrown into the mill and crushed to death; when the blind cousin fell in love with the stone cripple, they mistakenly thought that it was a hide-and-seek game. In their ignorance, they are full of wonder and fear of the ever-changing world.

However, as the book laments, "The warp and woof of the earth are like a pair of scissors, constantly cutting down on the carefree nature of childhood and increasing the load of sorrow on the little heart." In the ancient Chinese countryside, the burden of historical inheritance has always been the opium that poisons humanity and erodes the spirit. The journey of childhood, there are Yingjie's virginity, there are also somber feelings; there are innocent and beautiful dreams, there are also trembling nightmares. Innocent dreams, deposited with bitter tearstains. The invasion of the Japanese devils, so that many of the little friends of the family broke up, so that their own families are trapped and depressed, more importantly, the feudalism of "filial piety", and like a plague everywhere. Clever and lovely little celery, just because she is a woman, mother and daughter were doubly abused, abuse, until they were driven out of the house, wandering around; her young mind, covered with a thick shadow, branded with deep pain. All this is implied in the poetic description. At the end of the novel, we see Xiaoqin standing at her blind cousin's grave, bidding farewell to the monk, and seeing the two "red flowers" open on her head, we can't help but vaguely feel that under the reproduction of traditional teachings, the reincarnation of a woman's destiny, and the emergence of unlimited feelings of frustration.

Accompanying Listening depicts a retired general with legendary experiences through the perspective of a female graduate student. When the female graduate student meets him, he is already a grumpy old man. He lives forever in the memory of the past, in the era of guns and bullets. Time can't change his devotion to his beliefs, but he can't do anything in the face of today's materialistic society. He could not understand his children, nor could he get their understanding. The old man finally died in loneliness.

Wild Floating Weeds is about a volunteer soldier who was unfortunately captured on the Korean battlefield, and since then the humiliation of being a prisoner of war has been hanging over his head, bringing him countless bad luck. In the end, he was sent to a labor farm. He fought tirelessly against fate, but to no avail. A few decades later, he was transformed into a famous fortune-teller and a rich man with a huge fortune. At this moment, he still hasn't forgotten those comrades who once f***ed with his destiny

Anecdotes

From Weixi's study

Should a writer be able to write about what he sees, what he thinks and what he feels? From Weixi, who has published more than 60 books and a large number of essays and essays, has covered every aspect of life.

We visited this prolific writer, who has made a name for himself in the literary world. In an ordinary residential building, the study has a circle of dark brown bookcases, and even the glass is teal-colored, making the room look very solemn. East wall bookcases are some literature and history, anthology, tools and other books; west wall bookcases in their own works accounted for most of the bookcases; north of the bookcase is a wooden door. From Mr. said with a smile: "There are not only books inside, but also a lot of wine, the glass door will not look good. In fact, wine is still closely related to reading and writing." The reporter recalled Mr. Cong's grand statement about wine: wine is an integral part of Chinese culture, and wine is a sentient object.

South balcony, the window half-covered with reed curtains, on which hangs a large kite. On the windowsill, a few pots of small, not very expensive flowers, growing very lush. The computer on the table is open, the screen is from Mr. A few years ago when he went to the United States with his son and two grandchildren living and studying there, next to the famous sculpture from the crowd of his son, "the girl reads" works of small samples. I can see the attachment and love of an elder to his children and grandchildren.

From Mr. As always, just back from Shaanxi will be published a "qin kengru valley of deep thought", a few years ago to Taiwan did not see the sunrise, then wrote "Alishan see clouds".

From Weixi's "White Sails in the Distance," from the return of the manuscript to the award

But because of the change in the period, some experienced publications in charge, although they have done a lot of good things, the clapboard launched a large number of excellent works; sometimes it is also inevitable that errors in judgment, almost making it difficult to let a good work to come out and become the "Pearl of pity! The regret of the "lost pearl". Such examples are not difficult to cite. The fate of Wei Xi's middle grade novel "White Sails in the Distance" is an example that impresses me y.

About September 1981, I was working for a national literary journal and was preparing a novel for the 11th issue of the journal, but I could not find any "popular" works. While I was worried, my friend, the painter Li Burgo, gave me a copy of his new novel, White Sails in the Distance, which had already been typeset and illustrated. This is a copy has been typesetting, illustration ready 16 clear sample. It turned out that Li Jun had taken it from a large publication in Beijing, and had already arranged for it to be published, but it was drawn down temporarily. After I read it, I felt that it was a masterpiece from Weixi, although it was written about the life of the labor camp, but it was full of idealistic colors and romantic mood, and it was written about a few characters who were mistakenly in bonds, such as one of the main characters of the work, who was mistakenly regarded as a "habitual thief" of the 17-year old "iron cat", but he had a golden heart. One of the main characters of the work, the 17-year-old "Iron Cat", who is mistaken for a "habitual thief", has a heart of gold. His sympathy for the 6-year-old "Little Yellow Hair" and the intellectuals such as Ye Tao and Huang Ding, who were wrongly categorized as "rightists", shines with the glory of human nature that has not yet been erased. In addition, the "Luoban" captain, who was written about in the work as being incorruptible but not yet out of obscurantism, the old captain Kou An, who was wrongly labeled as a "rightist" but was a righteous Red Army soldier, and the wolfish former "second lieutenant" of the Junta, all give people the impression that they have never changed their character. "All of them give us a vivid impression. I wondered why such a work could not be published. I wrote down my own analysis and evaluation of it and recommended it to the person in charge of the publication. I didn't expect that the head of the publication, who had supported many innovative works in the early years of reform and opening up, would reject the work and write a long letter to the writer from Weixi. In the letter, he hardly talked about the work "White Sails in the Distance," but made a great deal of discussion about the subject matter and advised the author not to "look for gold in the dung" any more. (This is the gist of the letter as I recall it.) I froze in amazement at reading such a long letter. The person in charge, whom I respected, had entrusted me with the difficult task of returning a manuscript. I had no choice but to go to the home of Mr. Weixi. After meeting, from Weixi read the letter, apparently the same as me, it is difficult to accept the respected elder's high opinion. (Although from the editor's "rules", I did not express my dissatisfaction with this elder's opinion in front of Weixi.)

Several months later, Harvest magazine in Shanghai prominently published Weixi's "White Sails in the Distance" in its first issue of 1982.

Toward the end of the 1982 Chinese novel awards, the head of the Chinese Writers' Association wrote a letter to Feng Mu, the head of the jury, recommending two writers for the awards. One of them was "White Sails in the Distance" by Weixi.

Soon, White Sails in the Distance won the 1982 National Outstanding Middle Grade Novel Award, and critic Feng Mu gave the novel high marks.

Similar to "White Sails in the Distance," I also recall Liu Xinwu's short story "I Love Every Green Leaf". This novel was later awarded a prize, but was basically rejected by the head of a national literary journal, and the editors tried to get it a "request for writer's revision" treatment, which persuaded the head to finally agree to publish it in the journal with the status of "last article". I'm not going to be able to do that.

I don't think "I Love Every Green Leaf" is Liu Xinwu's best novel, but it could have been published, or at least not rejected. Wasn't it rejected because it raised the issue of respecting people's individuality and privacy earlier? The central plot of the work is about a high school teacher who has not married for a long time but keeps a photo of a young woman locked up in his drawer, and because of this, he has to be straightened out in the "Cultural Revolution". In fact, respect for people's individuality and privacy, which in a normal society is nothing ah, but also in the new era to restore the fine tradition of seeking truth from facts, in the reorganization of the things that have been done, what taboo?

From Weixi: he returned to the constellation that belonged to him

The writer from Weixi has written an article in memory of Mr. Ba Jin. Yesterday when a reporter called to interview him, he said the reporter was the first person to tell him the news, and he asked the reporter to call him back in half an hour, he wanted to be quiet for a while. When the reporter called the phone again after half an hour, the writer's voice was a little muffled, he said, so soon there have been three sets of reporters have called to interview him.

"My biggest feeling is that Ba Lao 'home', back to his heavenly home, you know, there is a star in space named after Ba Jin, he finally returned to belong to him on that constellation." It was not hard to hear from the calm voice the sinking pain from Weixi.

"In fact, as early as the fall of 1982, I have already listened to the teachings of Ba Lao speaking the truth. At that time, he returned from the international pen meeting held in France, in the short time of stay in Beijing, I went to the Yanjing Hotel where he and Xiaolin stayed, to visit Ba Jin old man. I remember that Ba was very tired that day because of the long flight, but he still leaned back on the sofa and expressed his heartfelt words to me as follows: 'Our generation is getting old, and I have often been saddened by reading the words of your generation that pour out their true feelings. The steps you have taken since your return from vindication are good, and you must keep them up.' What I said, because of the long time has been unable to remember, but Ba Lao these few very ordinary and very deep words, I am always repeatedly chewing on its meaning, and thus until today, that calm and peaceful tone, still vividly live in my heart."

From Weixi, he said, "It was also a coincidence that my sad middle grade novel 'White Sails in the Distance', which depicted the life of the labor reformers, was difficult to be published at that time. At that time, a large periodical to me, will be my novel 'far away white sails' take away, a long time no reply; to be I asked the reason for the publication, the editor-in-chief to 'details are too harsh, can not eat the spirit of the upper side' as the reason for me to delete some of the so-called 'sensitive' episodes. I immediately refused. I immediately refused, because that is the reality of my labor camp life, that is my spirit and flesh sensation in which I have been imprisoned for many years, to take out these things is the same as breaking the sinews of the novel, making it a soulless walking corpse, completely departing from the fundamental concept of literature reflecting the reality of society. On that day, I told Ba Lao and Xiao Lin what had happened to the novel, and handed over the manuscript to Ba Lao and Xiao Lin. According to what Xiaolin told me afterwards, despite the fatigue of the long-distance flight, Ba Lao read my novel overnight and said to Xiaolin: 'The novel shows the harshness of history, and in the harshness of the subject, it shows the beauty of human nature at the lowest level of life, regardless of the attitude of the other journals, we need this kind of work to go back to us and publish it.' Consequently, this middle-grade novel, which was soon revealed in Harvest - proved to be accurate in Ba Lao's prediction, and in the Second National Novel Prize in 1984, White Sails in the Distance won the Outstanding Middle-Grade Novel Literary Prize of the session, with a near-unanimous vote."

From Weixi: "Ba Lao has been sick for a long time, and both his family and his readers are probably more adapted psychologically. Ba Jin has long said that he would go to meet with Xiaoshan, this is one of his wishes, and this time also realized. But he is gone or the loss of the literary and cultural world, he represents the conscience of a generation, he is gone, we still feel the pain of losing a flag."

Figure dies

October 29, 2019, 7:35 pm, from Weixi died at the age of 86 in Beijing after a long illness.

A farewell ceremony for Cong Weixi's body was held at 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2019, in the East Hall of Babaoshan Funeral Hall. Wang Meng, Tie Ning, Feng Jicai, Li Jingze, Liu Heng and many other writers came to offer condolences and lay wreaths.