The five winners of this year's Mao Dun Literary Award were selected from some 156 titles nominated by publishing houses across the country.

According to He Shaojun, a member of both the first and second round review committees, about 1,000 full-length novels are published in China every year.

Though some of the nominated works were poorly printed, the list of nominees, published between 2001 and 2005, did not miss a title.

A total of 23 were then selected by a group of about 20 readers, most of whom are literature professors or editors of literature periodicals, after carefully reading all 156 works.

Then the review committee, consisting of another group of literary insiders, decided the final winners by voting on the 23 books.

"The final five winners might not satisfy everybody, but the preliminary selection of the 23 books reflects well the standard of novels in China over the past five years," says He.

The announcement of the winners of this year's Mao Dun Literary Award in April aroused immediate debate among critics and book lovers.

Some critics have charged that The Era of Heroes and The Sky of History fail to meet the standards of the Mao Dun Award.

Meanwhile, they criticized the review committee for not selecting Mo Yan's novel, The Sandalwood Torture (Tanxiang Xing), a much more popular work. Mo Yan is best known for his novel Red Sorgum.

Reacting to the criticism, Liu Jianwei, the author of The Era of Heroes, says: "I have grasped the pulse of the era, and created many figures whose counterparts are seldom seen in other contemporary Chinese novels."

But Liu is the first to admit that some parts of his book needed further attention. They were not, he explains, due to a certain hesitancy that prevented him from exploring deeper the characters' inner worlds.

Liu reveals that he was so close to the things he wanted to portray that he feared his description would result in distortion.

"Liu's courage of facing up to reality is valuable, but he has not digested it well. He simply makes superficial illustrations of many things," He Shaojun says.

For example, Liu eulogizes non-governmental business in his novel but does not disclose its innate limits, He explains, while quickly adding that Liu's winning of the prize was a fair result.

"Fairness is different from correctness."

"The review committee strictly followed the procedures when selecting winners and did not violate the rules. 'The Era' got more than two thirds of the votes, which guaranteed its place in the final winning list. The fairness should not be doubted as long as the rules of the game are obeyed."

According to He, Mo Yan did get the most votes in the first round of voting but did not get enough in the final round.

History shows us that the Mao Dun is the only literary award that can boost sales.

"Dust Settles Down (Chen'ai Luoding) by A Lai, winner of the Fifth Mao Dun Award in 2000, has sold more than one million copies to date.

White Deer Plain (Bailu Yuan) by Chen Zhongshi, which won the Forth Mao Dun Award in 1997, has sold more than 1.2 million copies.

Publishers are optimistic about the market prospects for this year's winners.

Changjiang Literary Publishing House, the publisher of Zhang Juzheng, Shiyue Literary Publishing House, the publisher of Without Words, and People's Literature Publishing House, which published the other three books, have all ordered an additional print run of at least 20,000 copies.

(China Daily July 28, 2005)