深圳90后作家捧回冰心文学奖

    Mai Ya, a young author from Shenzhen, was recently awarded the Bing Xin Children’s Literature Prize, becoming the third young author from Shenzhen to win the nationally famous award.

    Mai’s prose featuring her thoughts on desperate loneliness and fear during childhood helped her nab the prize. The young author said that she had always wanted to write about childhood to help her process her own feelings.

    “I did not expect that I would get the prize because I wrote the piece so quickly,” said Mai. Mai wrote the story the day before submissions closed. “I was crying while I wrote it because I was remembering painful memories from my childhood,” said Mai, who thought the suffering of loneliness in childhood might have resonated with the judges and readers.

    Mai said the story she told was a segment of a memory from her childhood when she was told by her friends and families not to get too close to a “dumb kid.” Without knowing exactly why the kid was described as silly and stupid, Mai joined in a group of kids who ignored and bullied the “dumb kid.”

    However, the “dumb kid” did not resent those who bullied her and always shared her toys with them, which made Mai feel guilty. After hearing about the girl’s miserable situation while on a visit back to her hometown, Mai felt even worse for what she and the others had done to that “dumb kid.” Mai hopes that through her writings she can tell other children to learn to love instead of hurting one another.

    Originally coming from a rural area, Mai said that what made her happy the most was receiving new books when a new school semester started. Mai and her family moved to Shenzhen when she was a Grade 4 student and was surprised to learn that a Grade 3 peer had already published his own novel. Mai felt inspired to learn to write and become an author.

    The young author also commented that Shenzhen is a dynamic city for writing literature for children because there are a great number of young writers.

    (Zhang Qian)