In May 1927, due to the congress of the International Pen Conference, London gathered a group of famous writers from Europe and the United States.

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

At present, the International Pen Association has branches in dozens of countries around the world, and only India has pen association centers in Asia.

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

Japan was not invited to join the International Pen Association until 1935.

This has a lot to do with the lack of attention from Asian literature. If Tagore had not won the Nobel Prize in Literature, India would not have been invited by the International PEN Club.

The theme of this pen conference is: the survival status and freedom of speech of writers in oppressed countries in the world.

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

Generally speaking, the topics are very big, such as world peace or saving humanity. Anyway, it is the kind of topic that can show the writer's sentiment of saving the world and give the writer room to play.

Writers, especially great writers, think writing is a serious matter.

It is portraying this world, soothing the human soul, giving advice to the future, and expressing one's inner desires.

They often have the mentality of saving the world and saving the people, or express their views on the world.

Sima Qian said something very well when reporting to Ren An.

"King Wen was imprisoned and performed the Zhou Yi; Zhongni was miserable and performed the Spring and Autumn Period; Qu Yuan exiled, and then wrote Li Sao; Zuo Qiu was blind and had a Mandarin language; Sun Tzu was crippled and cultivated military tactics; Bu Wei moved to Shu, and was passed down by Lu Lan; Han Fei was imprisoned in Qin, and he was lonely and angry; three hundred poems are mostly done by sages."

These people are writers.

The reason why the International Pen Association set this theme has a lot to do with China's participation in international pens.

After several years of exhibitions, the International Pen Association has set up branches in Europe, the United States and other countries. If it wants to expand its scale and influence, it needs to show to Asia. India and China are both ancient civilizations in the East.

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

Even without Lin Zixuan, the International Pen Association will still invite China in a few years, and his appearance will advance this time.

So, the topic this time is to discuss the literary situation in colonial and semi-colonial countries.

This will help other countries agree to China's application to join the International Pen Association.

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

Soviet writer Gorky solemnly stated in Italy that he called on countries to boycott the novel 1984 because the novel alluded to the Soviet leaders. It was an extremely irresponsible act to seriously distort the great revolution of the Soviet Union.

Gorky has a considerable influence in the world literary world, and he is friends with many famous Western writers.

France's Roman Rolland and Gide supported Gorky. They had not been to the Soviet Union yet, but they had longing for the Soviet Union.

This is easy to understand. Like Luxun, writers often play the role of critics in their own country, that is, they look at their own country or Western civilization, and believe that Western civilization has various disadvantages.

Therefore, they particularly yearn for the Soviet revolution. How courage does it take to defeat and overthrow everything and start over again.

This is how writers always want to change the world, but they don’t have the ability to make changes, so they can only fantasize about changing the world in novels.

The Soviet revolution sounded beautiful, which made many Western writers who wanted to change the world yearn for it.

However, once they were allowed to live in the Soviet Union for a while and understand the true situation of the Soviet Union, they would be disillusioned.

Gide went to the Soviet Union in 1936. After his disillusionment, he wrote back from his visit to the Soviet Union and criticized the Soviet Union without hesitation.

Due to Gorky's statement and his attitude towards the Soviet Union, writers from various countries were divided into different camps.

This incident is a major event in the world literary world this year. These writers gathered together and would inevitably discuss it. They were also curious about the Chinese writer from the Far East, so they found Lin Zixuan's novel to read.

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

They can also buy Gone with the Wind and Watchmen in the Wheat Field, but these people focus 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 considerable reputation in the United States. This time he came to London was Sinclair Lewis, and his representative work was Arrow Smith.

His experiences are very similar to Lin Zixuan. He first wrote popular novels, but later rewrites serious literature.

He is good at using detailed descriptions and language descriptions to perform satire, full of irony, humor, rough style and straightforwardness.

He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2019.

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

Karel Cagepek, chairman of the Czech Pen Club Center, supports Lin Zixuan, a novelist and playwright who is good at fairy tales.

In 1920, Cappec presented the science fiction script universal robot, understood the word robot, and opened up a new path for later science fiction novels.

Countries like Belgium and Sweden are neutral.

India, the only Asian country, supports Lin Zixuan because of Tagore's relationship. In fact, Tagore himself yearned for the Soviet Union.

Some of the British writers have serious discrepancies.

The president of the International Pen Association was Golsworthy, and among the early members were Joseph Conrad, Shaw, and Wells.

This time, Lin Zixuan asked them a difficult problem. Shaw is a member of the Fabian Society and belongs to the socialist camp. Shaw also nominated Lin Zixuan to join the International Pen Association.

Wells is a famous British science fiction novelist who wrote novels such as Time Machine and Star Wars.

He visited the Soviet Union in 1920 and met with Lenin and others. He had a very common impression of the Soviet Union.

He has a great say in the International Pen Association and is about to take over as the President of the International Pen Association.

This International Pen Conference requires countries to vote whether to allow China to join the International Pen Conference, because Lin Zixuan and the novel 1984 have caused disagreement in opinions from various countries, which means that there are considerable risks.

At this time, British writers should express their attitude.

In the UK, Lin Zixuan has many friends, namely the Bloomsbury Group, which is based on Virginia Woolf.

They lobbyed Lin Zixuan, believing that the two things that Lin Zixuan personally and China join the International Pen Association cannot be confused. China joins the International Pen Association is a matter of Chinese writers, and the novels written by Lin Zixuan are his personal opinion.

You may not like his novels, but he has the freedom to write.

In this way, before Lin Zixuan arrived in London, he had enemies from half of the world and friends from the other half of the world. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!