Lu Xun Literature Prize winner, writer Su Tong. Photo: CFP

By Xing Daiqi

Winners of the Lu Xun Literature Prize, one of China's most prestigious literary accolades, were announced Tuesday night with 30 works taking top honors.

Guojia Dingdan (National Order Form) by Wang Shiyue, Cigu (Sagittaria) by Su Tong and Zhenzhong Zai Renxin (Epicenter in People's Heart) by Li Mingsheng were some of the winning titles in an award that includes novellas, short stories and essays.

Internet literature was also included for the first time, aiming to attract the 400 million Internet users in China. However, the National Outstanding Literary Translation Award was not given this year for the first time in the awards' 15-year history.

Named after Lu Xun (1881–1936), considered the founder of modern Chinese literature, the awards aim at promoting novellas, short stories, reports, poetry, essays and translations. They have been held every three years since 1995.

Su Tong, a winner in the short story category, is best known for his full-length novels Raise the Red Lantern and Wives and Concubines. Su said he felt strongly about writing short stories and was pleasantly surprised with his prize.

"The art of short stories is micro-carving, like chamber music or dancing on the table," Su said after the results were announced. "Short stories are often neglected or forgotten in present-day China. The Lu Xun Prize, with its eyes on novellas and short stories, is like a bunch of flowers dedicated to the lonely writers."

The nomination of Internet literary work Wang Shi (Elapsed Internet) by Wen Yu was a first for the awards and was warmly received.

"It shows that after more than a decade's development in China, especially in terms of market-oriented operations, Internet literature is finally making its way to mainstream literature," commented renowned Internet writer Han Haoyue.

"This fusion accepted by the mainstream, represented by the Chinese Writers' Association and Lu Xun Prize will provoke a chemical reaction between the old and new genres and inspire the vitality of Chinese literature," Han said.

Literature scholar Ye Kuangzheng added that the impact of the Internet on literature is far beyond the medium.

"Online literature represents people's concerns about reality, their instantaneous feelings. It changes the literary value of our time," he remarked.

Ye said that while including an Internet work in the nominations, more needs to be done to promote innovation in literature.

"Over the past 200 years, Chinese literature has stayed closed, only drawing inspiration from literary classics. This leads to the failure of presenting new historical and philosophical perspectives in our literature," he commented.

"Official literature awards like Lu Xun still stick to conventional principles and esthetics and this is why they stray further from the majority of people."

Many established online writers denounced the act as a hype, rather than acceptance of the genre by the mainstream literary circle.

"The Chinese Writers' Association has to reconcile with online writing facing the enormous popularity of the genre. Online writing doesn't need any prize because it involves all people and should only be judged by the public, instead of a small jury," commented writer Li Yunlong.

Others suggested a separate category should be established for online literature by the Lu Xun Prize.

The biggest shock of the evening was the lack of any winners for the National Outstanding Literary Translation Award. Considered as one of the few influential translation awards in China, five works were nominated from 40 entries, but none were named a winner.

Gao Hongbo, deputy director of the Chinese Writers' Association attributes the lack of a winner to a decline in the quality of translated works, which he said represents the flippant atmosphere of the publishing industry and the stagnant situation of Chinese literature translation.