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TEN Chinese-language books were selected as the 2013 “Top 10 Books of the Year” on Saturday, according to the organizing committee of the Shenzhen Reading Month.
“This year’s selected books fully deserve to be recommended to the public,” said Liu Suli, founder of All Sages Bookstore and an independent literary critic.
The books were selected from a shortlist of 100 books, and came in every genre including literary, political, economic, topical and essay collections, said Hu Hongxia, editor-in-chief of the Daily Sunshine.
The judging panel included 21 editors-in-chief of well-known print media platforms, literary critics, researchers and literary professors.
“The selection was launched Nov. 10. We chose 50 books from the shortlist after four rounds of voting,” Hu said. “All the judges gathered in Shenzhen on Nov. 23 and 24 for discussions, and 30 books went to the final rounds.”
The final voting was planned to be held Nov. 24, but the panel eventually decided not to choose the “Recommended Book of the Year” because all books are of high quality and the judges couldn’t reach an agreement.
“This year’s selection was very fair and creative. The result was not announced after voting Nov. 24. Our votes were sealed in a special box, and the box was opened right before the award ceremony in front of all the staff and journalists,” Hu said.
When the box was opened, it was found that three books, including “The Complete Biography of Chen Duxiu,” “Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century” and “Memoir of Wang Dingjun,” gained the same votes and all ranked as No. 9. After the judges’ serious discussions, the panel finally decided to put “The Complete Biography of Chen Duxiu” and “Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century” on the list.
“After years of endeavors, the list is now a benchmark event in the country’s reading and literary circles,” said Liu. “It is made not for influencing readers and publishers but for setting up standards.”
“In my opinion, the standards include four aspects: Whether the book is related to the issues we are concerned with at the moment, whether the book can help enhance our mind or spirit, whether the book can improve our knowledge or have significant contribution to academic world and whether the book can bring a joyful reading experience to readers,” Liu said.
Meanwhile, some other awards were given out at the ceremony. Dai Dahong, former president of a football club in Henan Province, was named Translator of the Year; CITIC Press Group became Publication House/Publication Organization of the Year. Zhang Hui, a young writer who died of illnesses in March this year, became Writer of the Year.
Dai won the award because of his translation work on “Gulag: A History.” The former football club president can now get back to his literary world. “I am just a reader. In my translation, I think what the original work talks about is the most important thing. So this award is for my reading, not translating,” he said.
Zhang Hui’s wife, Zhang Lin, received the award for her late husband. The 36-year-old young writer died of cerebral hemorrhage and acute leukemia in Beijing. The judges thought that he was as talented as those of older generations and his death was a great loss for the country’s literary scene.
“I thanked the judging panel for giving the award to Zhang Hui. I believe that he would think he did not deserve the award. He was just a newcomer in the literary world and what he did was what a reader was supposed to do,” Zhang Lin said.(Wang Yuanyuan)
1 “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” by Ezra F. Vogel
2 “The Captive Mind” by Czeslaw Milosz
3 “Gulag: A History” by Anne Applebaum
4 “Flowers” by Jin Yucheng
5 “Looking for William Soothill” by Shen Jia
6 “The Invention of the Modern World” by Alan Macfarlane
7 “The Ancients Had Thoughts” by Chen Tushou
8 “Apocalypse South Africa” by Qin Hui
9 “Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century” by Tony Judt
10 “The Complete Biography of Chen Duxiu” by Tang Baolin
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