Chinese writer Zhou Jianing talks with Joe Dunthorne at Shanghai Writers' Association. provided to China Daily

Envious eyes cast on young British author's successful first novel

It's very rarely that a young writer gets a novel published, even more so that it goes on to be a big seller and a film.

Joe Dunthorne has acknowledged that he was very lucky to have his first novel published in his mid-20s, and says he still has a long way to go as a writer.

"I'm jealous of Joe, that his first novel Submarine can be made into a feature movie, watched and loved by many audiences," says Zhou Jianing, a Chinese writer of the same age as Dunthorne.

Zhou had her first book published when she was only 20. She was the winner of the New Concept writing competition in 1999 and has had four novels and three collections of short stories published.

"It's hard to imagine that a young writer's work, a highly personal novel about a boy's development, will become part of the mainstream culture," she says. "In China, even if a story like that were made into a movie, it would have to be played at an alternative film festival or a private coffee shop."

Submarine was published in Chinese by People's Literature Publishing House last year.

"It's like a Catcher in the Rye of the 21st century," says Peng Lun, editor of the Chinese version. "Dunthorne has done a great job depicting the psychological experience of a teenage misfit. The film adaptation also won very high praise.

"Dunthorne has been a wonderful new discovery for the British publishing world, and we are considering buying the copyright of his second novel Wild Abandon that has just come out."

Dunthorne and Zhou, both born in 1982, discussed the challenges faced by young writers at the Shanghai Writers' Association in August.

Dunthorne, who was due to attend the Shanghai Book Fair, had problems with his visa and a delayed flight and barely made it in time for a book signing before the fair closed on Aug 21.

Dunthorne considers himself lucky to get published as a young author, and at a time when the economy was good and he could make a living as a full-time writer.

But a young writer can get support from the literary industries in the UK, he says. There are various residence projects and grants available and one can do some journalism work, or teach creative writing after gaining some recognition.

There is an established route in Britain where an aspiring writer takes a master's program in creative writing. After some training and practice, a writer may get sufficient recognition that an agent will be willing to read his or her work. As a result, "most writers don't get published until they're in their 30s", Dunthorne says.

Dunthorne was accepted for the creative writing course at East Anglia University in Norwich when he was 19, the initial recognition of his talent.

In 1970, East Anglia was the first British university to offer creative writing courses. Among its early graduates were Ian McEwan, now one of Britain's most acclaimed writers, and Man Booker Prize-winning authors Kazuo Ishiguro and Anne Enright.

When asked whether he felt "pressure or nourishment" from the achievements of the older generation of writers, Dunthorne says that "it's the mission of the younger generation to destroy the older".

He says he wanted to do something different from writers such as McEwan, but felt that they still dominate and will continue to do so for a long time.

"We'll wait for them to give up," he says.

Submarine, like many writers' first books, is highly autobiographical. Zhou also writes a lot about her family and friends, and was sometimes reluctant to show them her published stories, for fear they would not like what she wrote about them.

Dunthorne is more confident about drawing from his own experience, but says that writers do not have a choice about what they write. "They can only write about what they care about, what interests them most," he says.

The challenge then lies in getting the younger generation to read what they have written.

Dunthorne also plays for the English writers' football team, made up of about 20 writers. They have traveled to Germany, Norway and Hungary to play against these countries' writers.

"We would play football in the day time and read books in the evening," he says.

Some of today's younger generation no longer like to read, so they came upon the football idea to engage them, let them think writers can be cool, and that reading can be fun. It also helped the writers play out their fantasy of becoming professional footballers.

zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/05/2012 page36)