In May 1927, due to the International PEN Congress, a group of famous writers from Europe and the United States gathered in London.

They come from the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Ireland, Belgium, the Czech Republic, India and other countries.

At present, PEN International has chapters in dozens of countries around the world, and only India has a PEN center in Asia.

The Soviet Union did not join the International PEN, but Gorky was an honorary member of the International PEN.

It was not until 1935 that Japan was invited to join PEN International.

This has a lot to do with the lack of attention to Asian literature, and if it weren't for Tagore's Nobel Prize for Literature, India would not have been invited by PEN International.

The theme of this edition of PEN is: the living conditions and freedom of expression of writers in the oppressed countries of the world.

The so-called theme is to give everyone a topic of communication and express their opinions.

Generally speaking, the topics are very large, such as world peace or saving mankind, anyway, it is the kind of topic that can show the writer's feelings about helping the world, and can give the writer room to play.

Writers, especially great writers, think that writing is a serious thing.

It is to portray the world, to soothe the soul of mankind, to give advice to the future, and to express one's inner desires.

They often have the mentality of helping the world, or express their own views on the world.

Sima Qian said it very well in the "Book of Reporting to Ren'an".

"King Gavin acted in "Zhou Yi"; Zhong Nieu made "Spring and Autumn"; Qu Yuan's exile is endowed with "Lisao"; Zuoqiu is blind and has "Chinese"; The grandson is barefoot. Revision of the Art of War; Buwei moved to Shu, and the hereditary "Lu Lan"; Han Fei imprisoned Qin. "Difficult to Say", "Lonely Anger"; The 300 poems are probably what the sages did when they were angry. ”

These people are writers.

This is why PEN International has chosen this theme. It has a lot to do with China's participation in PEN.

After several years of development, PEN International has set up chapters in Europe and the United States, and if it wants to expand its scale and influence, it needs to develop towards Asia, India and China are both ancient civilizations in the East.

China is a good choice, and Lin Zixuan just happened to be there.

Even without Lin Zixuan, in a few years, PEN International will still invite China, and his appearance has brought this time forward.

Therefore, the topic of this discussion is the state of literature in colonial and semi-colonial countries.

This will facilitate other countries to agree to China's application for membership in PEN.

Originally, everything was fine, but due to the publication of 1984. It has set off a storm in the world literary circle.

Soviet writer Gorky issued a solemn statement in Italy, calling on all countries to boycott the novel "1984", because the novel alludes to the Soviet leadership, seriously distorts the great revolution of the Soviet Union, and is an extremely irresponsible act.

Gorky had a great influence on the world literary scene, and he was friends with many famous Western writers.

Romain Rolland and Gide of France supported Gorky, who had not yet been to the Soviet Union, but who had a longing for the Soviet Union.

It's easy to understand, as with Lu Xun. Writers often play the role of critics in their own countries, that is, they look at their own countries, or look at Western civilization as unpleasant, and think that Western civilization has all kinds of ills.

Therefore, they especially yearn for the revolution in the Soviet Union. What a lot of courage it takes to knock down and overturn everything and start all over again.

Writers are like that. Always trying to change the world, but not having the ability to make a change. You can only fantasize about changing the world in novels.

The revolution in the Soviet Union sounded beautiful and made many Western writers who wanted to change the world yearn for it.

However. As soon as they lived in the USSR for a while, understood the real state of affairs in the USSR, they became disillusioned.

Gide went to the Soviet Union in 1936 and, after becoming disillusioned, wrote "The Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union", in which he unceremoniously criticized the Soviet Union.

As a result of Gorky's statement and attitude towards the Soviet Union, writers from various countries were divided into different camps.

This incident is a major event in the world literary scene this year, and these writers will inevitably discuss it when they gather together, and they are also curious about the Chinese writer from the Far East, so they look for Lin Zixuan's novel to read.

In the UK, Lin Zixuan's best-selling novel is Lord of the Flies, which has received unanimous praise from British critics.

They can also buy books like "Gone with the Wind" and "The Catcher in the Rye," but their focus is on "1984" and "Lord of the Flies," and they like to read in-depth novels.

Writers from all over the world have a preliminary understanding of Lin Zixuan through novels.

Among them, American writers naturally support Lin Zixuan, Lin Zixuan has a lot of popularity in the United States, this time it is Sinclair Lewis who came to London, and his representative work is "Arrow Smith".

His experience is very similar to that of Lin Zixuan, who first began to write popular fiction and later switched to serious literature.

He is good at using detailed descriptions, language descriptions and other ways to satirize, full of irony, witty, rough and straightforward style.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930.

Italian and Spanish writers opposed Lin Zixuan, and German writers supported Lin Zixuan instead, and at this time, Hitler in Germany had not yet come to power and was still in a relatively relaxed political environment.

Karel Chapek, the president of the Czech PEN Center, supported Lin Zixuan, a novelist and playwright who specializes in fairy tales.

In 1920, Capek published the science fiction play "Universal Robot", inventing the word robot, which opened up a whole new path for later science fiction.

Countries such as Belgium and Sweden are neutral.

India, the only Asian country, supports Lin Zixuan because of Tagore's relationship, in fact, Tagore himself is quite yearning for the Soviet Union.

There was a deep divide among British writers.

The president of International PEN was Galsworthy, and among its early members were Joseph Conrad, George Bernard Shaw and Wells.

This time Lin Zixuan gave them a problem, George Bernard Shaw was a member of the Fabian Society, belonged to the socialist camp, and George Bernard Shaw also nominated Lin Zixuan to join the International PEN Club.

Wells is a well-known British science fiction writer who wrote novels such as The Time Machine and Star Wars.

He had been to the Soviet Union in 1920 and had met Lenin and others, and he had a general impression of the Soviet Union.

He has a strong voice in International PEN and is about to take over the presidency of International PEN.

This time the International PEN requires countries to vote on whether to allow China to join the International PEN Committee, because Lin Zixuan and the novel "1984" lead to different opinions among countries, which means that there is a considerable risk of not being able to agree with each other.

At this time, the British writer had to make his attitude clear.

In the UK, Lin Zixuan has a lot of friends, that is, the Bloomsbury Group headed by Virginia Woolf.

They lobbied for Lin Zixuan, believing that Lin Zixuan could not be confused with China's entry into the International PEN Club, that China's entry into the International PEN was a matter for Chinese writers, and that the novels written by Lin Zixuan were his personal views.

You can dislike his novels, but he has the freedom to write.

In this way, before Lin Zixuan arrived in London, he had enemies in half the world, and at the same time he had friends in the other half of the world. (To be continued.) )