“To Live was finalized at ECNU.”
“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
“At least so far, I don’t think ChatGPT will pose a threat to Anyi and me.”
On the morning of March 26th, a talk entitled “Reality and Legend: Talking with Wang Anyi and Yu Hua” was held at ECNU. More than 700 people arrived to the event.
As soon as the news was announced, the event immediately caused a sensation among ECNUers who lined up to get their tickets for chasing the “stars”. This event was also broadcasted in real time via online platforms including ECNU WeChat Channel and ThePaper.cn, with a total of more than 1 million views online.
Yu Hua recalled his experience of writing novels at ECNU, including the work of To Live . After Wang Anyi also shared about her story with ECNU, the two writers engaged in a conversation on the topics of “reality” and “legend” for the audience.
Yu Hua pointed out that the conscious pursuit of “realism” had constituted an important momentum of the change in his literature creation: from the avant-garde works in the 1980s to a series of novels with different styles in the 1990s.
In Wang Anyi’s view, “reality is the foundation of novels”, while “novels create legend”. Drawing on their respective writing practices in recent years, the two writers shared their views on “realistic” and “legendary” writing with the audience.
As for the issue of AI and literary creation which has been greatly concerned by the public, the two unanimously agreed that AI had not yet posed a threat to writers. In Wang Anyi’s view, what writers should do is “write, and write,” and the only way to “defeat” AI is the reality that writers are facing: “Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you’re gonna get”. Combining his own experience of using AI with his reading experience, Yu Hua pointed out that even the “greatest writers” have advantages and disadvantages.
A Questions and Answers (Q&A) Session: youth, literature and passion
In response to the different aspects of “legendary” writing, Wang Anyi pointed out during the Q&A the deepening process of her “legendary” writing and the significance of “favorable timing and geographical conditions” during the writing process. Next, Yu Hua pointed out that young readers’ enthusiasm for literature has effectively maintained the purity of literary creation despite the impact of short videos on the writing process by writers in the field of literature.
Wang Anyi
Wang Anyi is a contemporary Chinese writer and literary scholar who also serves asChairman of Shanghai Writers’ Association, whose novel The Song of Everlasting Sorrow won the 5th Mao Dun Literature Award.
Yu Hua
Yu Hua is a contemporary Chinese writer who won the Grinzana Carver Prize, the highest prize in Italian literature, with his representative novel To Live. The English edition of another of his novels, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, won the Barnes Nobel New Discovery Book Award.
Copy editor: Melody Zhang, Philip Nash
Editor: Yvaine Lyu
