Chapter 16 Winning the Prize
Chapter 16 Winning the Prize
Literary awards such as the Group Portrait Newcomer Award, which are highly renowned in the industry, have extremely detailed and strict selection processes.
First, the editorial department will announce the list of shortlisted works, and then announce the list of members of the judging panel, the location and time of the closed judging session. Finally, on the judging day, a bus will take the judges directly to the judging location. Only after the judging event is over will these people reappear in the public eye.
Because there have been several scandals in which internal cheating resulted in awards going to other people, the major newcomer awards have gradually developed a scientific and reasonable selection mechanism in recent years.
The group portrait newcomer award adopts the "cross-examination and scoring system" which has been most popular in the past decade.
In the first step, the judges conduct an initial screening and select 50 novels from the 30 shortlisted novels to enter the second round. During this process, the judges must write a short elimination review of at least 20 words for each of the 300 eliminated novels.
These short reviews will be shown to readers in the subsequent monthly magazine "Qun Xiang".
The second step was that at noon the next day, the judges gathered together to score the 30 novels in the second round in turn and gave the basis for the scoring on the spot. The five novels with the highest scores entered the final round.
The third step is that on the morning of the third day, the judges will make a final assessment of the five shortlisted novels and vote on the winning work.
During this process, every step and every sentence of the selection will be recorded, and each judge will write a long review of more than 5 words for each of the five novels.
This way, readers can understand (and incidentally monitor) the process by which the grand prize is determined.
The judges are also free to express their personal opinions. If the jury "democratically" votes for a poor work that causes public outrage, the judges who previously opposed it will not have to take the blame.
This is indeed much more open and transparent than the literary award selection activities in many countries.
At 12 o'clock that evening, Muramatsu Tomomi received the second round of recommendation lists from the judges, and then immediately convened several key members of the "Gunzo" editorial department to organize and summarize the results.
Soon, the 30 novels that entered the second round were determined.
He glanced at the final list and saw Kitagawa Hide's "Hear the Wind Sing". Twenty-five of the thirty-two judges had put it on their recommendation lists, ranking third among all the shortlisted works.
It is worth mentioning that "Hear the Wind Sing" is the only novel recommended by all the specially invited judges. Even "The Remaining Epidemic", which ranked first overall, did not receive this honor.
After reading the novel for an afternoon and an evening, Muramatsu Tomoshi had a headache, but the lines from "Hear the Wind Sing" and the final ending kept appearing in his mind.
As the editor-in-chief, he had actually read the 50 shortlisted novels a long time ago, and the only one that left a lasting impression on him was "Hear the Wind Sing".
There is no doubt that this is a novella that can be called a masterpiece.
But in the afternoon, when faced with An Yuanxian's aggressiveness, he did not dare to say a word to defend Kitagawa Hide because this novel was too special.
"How can the light of day know the depth of night?"
Whenever he thought of this sentence, Muramatsu Tomoshi felt a tremor deep in his bones.
This is a novel that is a youth love story on the surface, but is actually about loneliness, confusion and redemption.
The ending of the story is not like that of an ordinary novel, either perfect or regretful. It should be said that there is not even any ending.
"Rat" continued to drink and eat peanuts in the bar; "I" got married and lived in Tokyo.
The girl with only four fingers on her left hand eventually disappeared in the crowd;
The record "California Girls" is still at the end of my record shelf;
The photo of the French major girl who died was lost during the move;
Bitsy Boyz has released a new record after a long time;
The radio host’s last broadcast was a departure from his usual humor and wit, with the words “I love you!” touching the hearts of readers.
Everything seemed to be over, yet it seemed to be over.
As Muramatsu Tomoshi was reading, he suddenly felt a sense of relief in his heart.
Yes, this is life, this is life.
Everyone is lonely and confused, but everyone's loneliness is connected like a well of Mars, so it is not really that lonely.
But listen to the wind, what is it saying? "You think so too, right? This novel has overturned the current literary world! This guy is using his pen to humiliate us old fools, as if he is pointing at our noses and cursing us."
"Hey, old men and women, did you see that? Novels don't have to be complicated and classical to be interesting. They can also take on the responsibility of comforting the people and educating the public!"
Takeuchi Osamu's voice came from the corridor.
He imitated the voice of young people and teased the other talented people like himself in a funny way, which made people laugh.
But after laughing, Muramatsu Tomoshi suddenly realized that maybe this time, "Gunzo" really had found a treasure!
Four days later.
After greeting Hashimoto Yudai at the door, Saito Rena was the first to step into the empty editorial office area carrying a small bag.
She took out a small mirror and looked at herself. Her dark circles seemed to have become heavier.
These four days were even more stressful and painful than when I was waiting for the general acceptance letter (admission notice) from the University of Tokyo.
Almost every night when she returned home, she couldn't help but take out the original manuscript of "Hear the Wind Sing" and reread it, repeatedly convincing herself that Kitagawa Hide's novel was fully qualified to be shortlisted!
Today is the day to announce the winning works.
Rena Saito felt a sense of relief that "things are finally coming to an end."
As long as the popularity of Hide Kitagawa's nomination is overshadowed by the winning work, her career will be able to start again.
It's normal not to win the award. This year, it is very likely that Yomiuri Okata's "The Lost Epidemic" will win the award. I heard that Deputy Editor-in-Chief Yasuhara has arranged an interview show specifically for Yomiuri Okata for Tanaka Aoi.
In addition, those foul-mouthed but highly popular critics also unanimously believe that Yomiuri Okamoto will win the title. After all, his defeat last year was really bad luck, as he met the more talented single mother writer, Mayumi Aso.
“How should we encourage Beichuan-san then? His writing style is very novel and has the potential to lead a new trend. He is also quite capable. In fact, Hear the Wind Sing is better than The Remaining Epidemic. He must be very disappointed if he didn’t win the award.”
Saito Reina rested her chin on her hand, thinking absentmindedly,
"How about we just treat him to dinner again?"
"Dong dong dong."
There was a sudden loud knock on the desk.
Saito Rena suddenly came to her senses, looked up, and found that it was Muramatsu Tomoshi who looked a little depressed.
"Editor-in-Chief Muramatsu, good morning!" She quickly stood up and bowed.
Muramatsu Tomoshi waved his hand casually: "Good morning, Editor Saito. Are you free now?"
"Yes, is there anything I can help you with?" Saito Rena's heart tightened.
The old editors all had strange expressions on their faces, and when they saw Saito Rena, they all smiled faintly, and some of them even had a hint of jealousy in their smiles.
envy?
Saito Rena saw that at the end of the team was An Yuanxian with a very bad look on his face.
Next to him was Tanaka Aoi, who kept her head down and said nothing, like a child who had made a mistake, obeying orders submissively and not daring to breathe.
"You may be very busy in the next week, so try to put down the work at hand first." Muramatsu Tomoshi wanted to pat her shoulder, but when he raised his hand, he realized that the other person was a rare female employee in the workplace, so he immediately changed his hand to patting the table, "By the way, can you contact that teacher Beichuan?"
"Teacher Kitagawa?" Saito Rena tilted her head. She didn't react for a moment. Is there a teacher with the last name Kitagawa under her?
Wait, Beichuan!
"Oh, sorry, I've been so busy these past few days." Muramatsu Tomoshi rubbed his temples and forced a smile. "Congratulations, Editor Saito. The novel "Hear the Wind Sing" that you recommended was selected as the winner of the 38th Gunzo Newcomer Literature Award. The novel will be published in the latest issue of Gunzo, and Mr. Kitagawa's acceptance speech will also be published together. I'll have to trouble you to urge it."
(End of this chapter)