How does it feel to be longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, and what would winning mean to you?
It feels great. I’m thankful for the recognition that Ninth Building has gotten. It signifies that 13 years after the Chinese publication, the English translation has allowed it to travel through time. I hope it attracts many different readers.
What were the inspirations behind the book? What made you want to tell this particular story?
There’s an ancient Chinese saying, about a child who has lost their mother: ‘I dream of mother, she was like a gust of wind’. A lonely child sees his mother in a dream at night; everything returns to normal in the daylight. He thought his mother came to see him.
In the early 1990s, my childhood felt like it had been a gust of wind behind the trees. I used to spend my days being lost: What should I write? Whatever I wrote was wrong. It was impossible to get rid of my childhood back then. So I just wrote like that. I wrote for myself. I wrote to let go of my childhood.
How long did it take to write the book, and what does your writing process look like? Do you type or write in longhand? Are there multiple drafts or sudden bursts of activity? Is the plot and structure intricately mapped out in advance?
I always use a ballpoint pen when I write. I’m from that generation. Chinese calligraphy has been around for thousands of years, and most Chinese classics were written with a calligraphy brush. During the previous generation in the 1930s, writing left to right with pens (fountain pens, pencils, ballpoint pens) began. Then in the ‘80s, after a Chinese language input method for computers was invented, it brought about writing with a keyboard. It became convenient to write on computers, but the pace and rhythm was different from Chinese written with a calligraphy brush. The change of writing tools brought about a big change in literature. And my writing is situated in the middle of this transition from pen to keyboard. I’ve tried to write with a keyboard, but I couldn’t continue. So until now, I’ve been using a pen to write. When I write using a pen, I can feel the expression of my mood and feelings with the movement of letters with just one glance. The letters that appear on a computer are stringed along, immobile and still. It made me think the machine participated in my writing.
I wrote Ninth Building mostly from 1989 to 1993. And then revisited it in 1996, revising a small part of it.