Author Talks about a Biography

Recently I interviewed Cheng Shaoguo. Cheng’s Notes on Lin Jinlan is published by the People’s Literature Press. For some people, Lin is a literary phenomenon. The Beijing Writers Association has recently recognized Lin Jinlan for his lifetime achievement in literature. Some experts have even proposed to create something Chinese like Nobel Prize and award Lin with such a great honor. Cheng’s book on Lin Jinlan is a success in its own right. After reading the book, I recommended it to some friends and interestingly enough other friends recommended it to me without knowing that I had already read it and recommended it to others. The interview touched upon Lin Jinlan and Cheng’s book on Lin.Here is a summary of what we chatted about Lin Jinlan and the book.

There has been enthusiastic response to the Notes on Lin Jinlan. It has received critical attention in major national newspapers and publications concerning books and literature. The Writers Digest and The News Media Digest printed excerpts of the book. The first edition was 10,000 copies.

Cheng Shaoguo is not the first writer who has noticed the importance of Lin Jinlan. In 1982 when Lin Jinlan’s stories were ignored, Cheng Depei, a literary critic, published a comment in Shanghai Literature, predicting that “the short stories by Lin Jinlan would be greatly valued when people of the future look at the literature of this period in retrospection.”

According to Cheng, the significance of Lin Jinlan lies in his lifelong fruitful quest in the language of short story, and his theoretical thinking on the art of the genre. His unique discoveries and theories are enlightening for writers of the modern vernacular.

Lin Jinlan left home at the age of 14. In 1937, he enrolled himself into a training camp where young cadres received education and got prepared for work against Japanese invaders. The camp was sponsored by Communists and the president was Shu Yu. After the training camp, he worked as a secret messenger for the Communists in the mountainous area between Wenzhou and Taizhou. Later he entered a social education institute in Chongqing where he studied under the tutelage of great scholars such as Liang Shiqiu, Shi Dongshan, Zheng Junli, Jiao Juyin and Zhang Junxiang. After graduation he went to Taiwan. He was jailed for more than a year for his participation in the 2/28 incident in 1947. He was the editor-in-chief of the Beijing Literature in the late 1980s. Things happened to him in these years. Even today, this world still looks quite puzzling to Lin.

While working as the chief editor, Lin read a lot of works by young writers. In fact, some say that no other old-generation writers read the works of the young writers as much as Lin did.

Lin keeps writing even he is now 84 years old even though some friends advise him to give up creative writing, saying that he is accomplished already. Cheng Shaoguo encourages Lin to continue writing. For Cheng, Lin has every reason to continue writing since he enjoys good health, walks a few miles every day, sleeps well and enjoys a good appetite.

Cheng Shaoguo himself is a writer. In the 1990s he published a few stories and he won an award from Chinese Writers, a leading literary magazine of China. His writing has helped him understand Lin Jinlan more.

Cheng Shaoguo first met Lin Jinlan in 1979. The idea of composing literary studies on Lin came to Cheng when he knew more and more about the accomplished story writer. From Cheng’s point of view, Lin is at least as good a writer as Wang Zengqi and Wang Meng, but Lin is not recognized as much. Knowing many great Chinese and foreign writers became established only after their death, Cheng Shaoguo decided he would not allow this to happen to Lin Jinlan. Cheng compiled Selected Short Stories of Lin Jinlan, which was published by the People’s Literature Press. Cheng also put together Selected Essays of Lin Jinlan, which was published by Liaoning People’s Press.

The Notes on Lin Jinlan is an innovative book. It is neither a biography in its normal sense nor an oral reminiscence, but it embodies the strong points of the both. The book provides profiles of prominent writers, some being his contemporaries and some being his predecessors. It is against this backdrop of writers that the book illustrates Lin’s achievement as a writer.

Cheng Shaoguo is proud of his creative book. It gives him the greatest satisfaction and he even believes this book makes his life worthwhile. Cheng is sure that the success of the book lies in the subject. Many materials in the book are from casual chats Cheng and Lin had while doing sightseeing. Cheng has a vivid memory for literary images. All of the chapters he wrote were submitted to Lin Jinlan for comments. Lin approved all the chapters but one. That one, Lin said, described him as a writer he could not modestly recognize. But Cheng disagreed with Lin on this point, reasoning that the book was about what he thought about Lin, not about what Lin thought about himself.

Cheng Shaoguo’s book was almost chosen for a Lu Xun prize last year. But it did not win because it was a biography written in prose style and it was competing in a seemingly wrong category of essays. Cheng Shaoguo yearns for the recognition of a national prize. He says he is too ordinary to resist the temptations of fame, but after learning his book did not win, he soon calmed down and dismissed the disappointment. A great comfort to him is that the book sells well.