Writers on Prizes: A Discussion with Xu Xi

Xu Xi is the author of fourteen books, including five novels, seven collections of short fiction & essays and one memoir. Her novel Habit of a Foreign Sky (2010) was a finalist for the Asian Man Booker Award and her short story Famine (2004) was awarded the O’Henry prize. Her works feature on many college literature reading lists.

Xu Xi defines success as being able to live life as a writer. That is to continue reading, writing, publishing, talking with other writers and having time to loaf. Monetary success is less important as she has always had and still has other jobs, but her greatest satisfaction comes from being a writer.

Literary prizes do help a writer’s career, although many are constraint by constructs.  Xu Xi is often “not qualified” for many prizes, in that she does not fit the constructs by which those prizes were awarded. The Nobel prize profiles the country and thus introduces writers onto the stage of world literature. But there is also the language and how that person’s writing fits into the constructs of literature, and there is generally some literary merit regardless of whether one likes the works or not.

As a judge for literary prizes, Xu Xi suspends her own prejudices and preferences for form. Good writing has to have a combination of how well the piece works within its form, how well it respects the conventions and how well the writer uses language.

There have been criticisms of Nobel winners as being not very meaningful. In academics, literature is something with a cultural aesthetic value that somehow survives the passage of time. Many contenders but non-winners of the Nobel prize are still being read today.  While the Nobel draws attention and preserves the works, there are some winners who will not be important in the future.

The literature that survives are due in part to the publishing industry, to literary prizes and what time and tide preserves. Book burnings happened in many cultures. Much has been lost and what remains is what has gotten pieced together. Then there are long lost works like the Dead Sea Scrolls that somehow find their way into the future. Digital adds a layer of complication – what will be retained?

Xu Xi does not write for a particular reader, she writes for that unknown person who will somewhere, sometime, pick up her work and that her work will make an impression. In the same way some authors and stories made an impact and influenced her as a young writer.

Academia tends to deemphasize the role of the author. In some genres the author cannot be ignored, namely creative non-fiction and memoirs. Here the author is important to understanding their writings in the context of their place and time. Trying to relate an author’s biography to the works is not particularly useful. Although when teaching literature the professor has a duty to provide the context, not about the author, but about when it was written. Context helps explicate a story, yet a story can be read as just that. Most writers like to tell stories and love using the language. Both of these are of little concern with what the author represents. The tendency to over-interpret who or what the author represents leads to a politicization of literature.

The Nobel recognises a life’s works and goes to someone who has had some recognition in his/her own country. The recognition of the author, especially if some works still command attention, is of real value. Such lifetime awards says something about what authors have provided readers over the span of their lives.  The Nobel has to highlight the author and cannot get away from the politics. The prize is national and Eurocentric, but not surprising since it started in Sweden.   

Nobel laureate Hong Kong writer? Xi Xi was definitely on the list as a 2021 Nobel contender. She won the Newman prize in 2019 and her works are now seriously looked at. P.K. Leung, had he lived, would have certainly been in the running. Both could be described as embracing the cosmopolitan culture of what was Hong Kong; both were intellectuals, fluent in English, bi-cultural and yet could be very local Hong Kong. Sadly Hong Kong does not have a vast literature: publishers are only interested in pop culture, and Hong Kong literature is not even taught.

The Nobel has not embraced pop culture as it is not considered literature. But does literature have space for science fiction or the graphic memories that are more than just comic books? Literature is the written word and use of language. Will it transform and cross over to other media in the future? Will performance take on new meaning? Literature is becoming amorphous. But the story will never go away.