Green longing

Author: Zhang Wei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: Counting back, I have been publishing works for nearly thirty years. Over such a long period, in terms of quantity, the most I have written are essays. I have always believed that essays cannot be considered general literary creations because they are not fictional—they are merely records of the truth. Therefore, sometimes, I place special importance on this part of my writings. In ancient China, before the Qing Dynasty, poetry and essays were considered noble literary forms, while fiction was not. Scholars and officials did not write fiction. It was only much later that fiction, as a highly absorbent literary form, underwent transformation and reinvention, gradually gaining recognition. However, it was still only a small portion that could encompass poetry and essays, possessing their qualities, and thus no longer ranked below them. This shows the elegance and purity of essays. Over these thirty years, I have always regarded essays as records of the soul. When a person faces the times and life, there must be a voice, and essays carry this voice. How life is experienced—its winding, stirring, and gratitude—all is captured in these words. Therefore, when a person revisits their old essays decades later, it is like touching their own history. I have always had a wish to organize and arrange these complex and scattered pieces in order. This time, I finally had the opportunity to do so, and added some images inspired by the original texts, making the records and explanations clearer. These essays will continue to be compiled, resulting in many volumes. Thus, they make me cherish them while also bringing me much unease, because they lay bare my immaturity and superficiality. But I cannot erase yesterday one by one. Life continues, and so do these words. I know I am witnessing, imagining, recalling, speaking, feeling gratitude and pain, and turning them into line after line of text.