Literature & Literary Studies
August 2018
Children of Tianhu is a non-fiction of Chinese writer Yan Lianke, the winner of Franz Kafka Prize. It’s about his emotions about the hometown and the growth. The storyline is the youth’s memories in hometown, it tells some important memories about the village Tianhu, the intimate neighborhood, meeting the girl Na, escaping to Longmen, etc. Yan says, the romance in the world, is nothing more than the memories of the childhood. The solid memory is the place called hometown. Children of Tianhu is a romantic and solid work, including the youth’s poor life in the village, the innocence and honesty, the thrill, the insecurity and the loneliness about exploring the world. Those fragments, those clear memories, the incredible age, the puppy’s love, the honesty between people, the kindness born from birth, the escape and the betrayal, those have deposited, becoming more striking, more deep and simple, and touching. The geography and the change of a village, the daily life of the villagers, the people and story remain in the brain, those exists and experiences never disappear along the life, they are the inspiration of the writer. Between the lines, it shows the wonder and the humor of the writing, and the writer’s strong emotions and concern about the hometown.
