Contemporary Reading Classics: Foreign Prose

Author: Jia Pingwa
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Everything in the world corresponds to development. After mentioning prosperity and flourishing, we must also speak of refining the coarse and selecting the essence. Now, the population is so large that it cannot be managed through planning—lines are formed on the streets, trains are overcrowded, and the Personnel Department is busy searching for talent. Talent is innate; it is the elite, yet like gold in the sand, it must be sifted, washed, and refined through labor. This year marks the 13th anniversary of Meiwen magazine's publication. Thirteen is considered an inauspicious number in Western cultures, but to me, it is auspicious. One of Meiwen's editorial offices is located on the 13th floor of a building. This year, everything has gone smoothly, and the magazine's circulation has also made significant progress.
Since its fifth year of publication, Meiwen has begun to publish selected anthologies of the best works. In recent years, more anthologies have been published, and the readers' enthusiastic responses have brought us great comfort. This year, publishers have placed even higher regard on Meiwen, and they have decided to publish a series of books titled Contemporary Reading Classics. This praise is too high for Meiwen to accept—it does not dare to claim to be a classic. However, from another perspective, a name is not just a symbol but also a way of conveying a wish. In small families, parents often give their children grand names, calling them dragons or phoenixes. We dare to adopt such a title for this series because we have a deep reverence for classics.
This series is mainly selected from the works published by Meiwen over the 13 years since its inception. To reduce repetition with other anthologies, at the publisher's suggestion, some additional articles have also been included. We hereby inform the readers of this.