According to the New York Times, the English translation of "Brothers" came out in early March 99 and was released in mid-July, a total of 1.13 million copies were sold in a total of 4 months, and it topped the New York Times best-selling list for 4 consecutive months......

Xiao Fei sat alone in his room, watching the news on TV.

This is a piece of news on the central news network, although it is only a short message of more than a minute, but its significance is not small.

It's not easy, the English translation of "Brothers" can break one million sales in such a short period of time, which is indeed a bit unexpected by Xiao Fei.

Why?

Because in the previous life, although "Brothers" sold well in the United States compared to other Chinese writers' books, it only sold more than 30,000 copies in ten years.

And in this life, through its own operation, it can become popular and become the best-selling book.

That's a big change.

Summing up the reasons why "Brothers" can become popular in this life, Xiao Fei feels that this is inseparable from his own hype and strong investment in marketing costs.

is the only one who has such courage and is willing to invest 200,000 US dollars in financial resources to make a name for "Brothers".

To be honest, the book "Brothers" is indeed a good book to read, and it is not much better than the popular "The Kite Runner" in the United States in the previous life.

It was buried, partly because of cultural bias, and partly because publishers did not value it.

Looking back at what has happened since the English version of "Brothers" was launched in the United States, what Xiao Fei felt most deeply was the huge cultural influence of US imperialism.

If it is said. If his work was still very controversial in China before, "Brothers" sold well in the United States. The controversy is small, and there is a lot of praise everywhere.

The popularity of "Brothers" in the United States has also led to the sales of Xiao Fei's works in many other countries around the world.

in Japan and South Korea. In Europe, in many other Third World countries, Xiao Fei's books began to sell well.

Especially "Brothers", which sold tepidly in other languages before, is now a big hit.

In addition, many publishers in small languages began to scream and ask for an agreement with Xiao Fei for translation and publishing. It is equivalent to the hot sales in the United States that have driven the hot sales of Xiao Fei's works all over the world.

"You barely have a bit of a world reputation, right?"

Xiao Fei said to himself in his heart.

……

The entire first half of 1999 can be described as a change in the wind and clouds for Greater China.

Feixun Technology has launched a web portal. And it became an instant hit and became China's No. 1 portal.

At the same time, Sina.com and Sohu.com were both established.

In the first half of 99 years, the earliest search engine in China, Qiandu Search, launched the largest communication community on the Internet, and also launched Qiandu Encyclopedia, Qiandu Library, Qiandu Convenience and other sections, attracting all Internet people to use Qiandu Search.

With the establishment of Taobao, opening an online store and buying things online has become a new fashion for netizens.

In the first half of the year, the most sensational thing in the film and television industry was the TV series "Soldier Assault".

As soon as this 30-episode TV series was broadcast on CCTV, it caused a sensation across the country. The ratings have reached an average of about 7%, which is very popular.

Time flies.

In the blink of an eye, it was the second half of '99, and in August, the most eye-catching event in the literary circle was about to happen.

This is the fact that the nominated works of the Mao Dun Literature Award will be produced within this month.

The primary entries are selected at the beginning of the year.

After the selection of the primary works. For most of the year, the judges' job was to read more than 200 novels.

To be honest, the judges in such a short period of time. It is simply impossible to read so many novels in earnest.

They can only read it cursoryly. For those who don't feel good about themselves, just throw them aside and ignore them. Then, read those excellent long stories carefully and give comments.

Their second task was simple: to select more than 20 of the more than 200 novels to be nominated for the Mao Dun Literary Award.

More than 250 novels, one out of ten.

The project is very enormous.

The work schedule is tight and the tasks are quite heavy.

In fact, when the judges read these books, they also have a focus: they must read carefully the works that have a great response after publication, and they must also read the works of those well-known famous artists.

In this way, Xiao Fei has become a focus of their attention.

This time, Xiao Fei's works were shortlisted for as many as 4 preliminary selections, and according to the instructions of the jury and the leaders of the Writers' Association, Xiao Fei's works can only be selected for a maximum of one shortlisted nomination.

Now that there is this instruction, it is easy to do.

Almost all the judges liked Xiao Fei's "Life and Death Fatigue", and according to the original intention of most of the judges, they wanted to choose this book to be shortlisted for the nomination award.

After all, "Fatigue of Life and Death" is more literary in the eyes of many people.

This is hardly controversial.

In fact, everyone believes that the probability of "Life and Death Fatigue" winning this Mao Award is very high.

However, after March 99, with the hot sales of the English translation of Xiao Fei's novel "Brothers" in the United States, it caused a great sensation in China.

The domestic literary circles have launched a wave of recognizing the literary value of the novel "Brothers".

Many critics have given a new interpretation of "Brothers" and have given it quite high praise.

This naturally also affected the attitude of the judges of the Mao Award.

Many judges began to hesitate: should they choose the more popular "Brothers" to be nominated for the nomination award, or should they choose "Life and Death Fatigue" as originally planned?

Of course, for those old writers, in fact, they are quite unimpressed with the popularity of "Brothers" in the United States, and they still stubbornly believe that for pure literary works, the more popular they are, the more vulgar they are, and the popularity of "Brothers" by Americans can only show that its story is well told, but in terms of literary value, it is really not very good.

Affected by the hot sales of "Brothers" in the United States, it is mainly the officials of the Writers' Association and some judges who are not very qualified.

The leaders of the Chinese Writers' Association are also very conflicted in their hearts.

Xiao Fei's book is a hit in the United States, and even topped the best-selling list, which is also an honor for them, a kind of political achievement.

Xiao Fei, this is winning glory for the country!

"Brothers", which Americans love, now seems to be liked by people all over the world, and it sells all over the world, what a great achievement!

Unconsciously, Xiao Fei has transformed into a world-renowned writer.

So, how can the finalists of the Mao Award not choose "Brothers"?

But "Brothers" was shortlisted, so what about "Life and Death Fatigue"? But it is something that people can't give up. (To be continued.) )