A Zhang Zhilu

　　Q Fan Wen

Zhang Zhilu

Chinese writer, dramatist

　　Q What advantages does Chinese children’s literature have in terms of “going global”?

　　A I began my career writing children’s literature in the 1980s. As a whole, the children’s literature marketplace wasn’t that bad back then. In terms of sales volume, some children’s books were able to sell ten to twenty thousand copies. Compared with the data for today, this is certainly a rather small number, but at that time the book market in China was as a whole much smaller than it is today, which is why I think the children’s literature market back then was pretty good. But after the 80s, the children’s literature market became stagnant for a period. Come the last decade or so, though, it’s rapidly developed with unprecedented vigor. You could say that in recent years the environment for the children’s literature market is significantly better than when we first started our careers in this industry.

　　I think the present export objectives and successes of Chinese children’s literature have been pretty good. The problem is that, to some extent, the current proposed methods for exporting children’s literature favors appearances over content. For example, the longer, more important works that have been exported are well known by foreign experts, but relatively unknown among readers. Recently, there’s been a great deal of Chinese picture books exported, this is because picture books are easier to understand. There are also a lot of Chinese writers that are able to find famous, foreign artists to provide illustrations for their work. These foreign artists certainly have a presence in the foreign marketplace, and they serve as a sort of intermediary. They help foreign experts to gain a familiarity with Chinese works. It should be explained that I’ve always viewed specialists and readers as two separate groups because I really hope that one day foreign readers will consider Chinese children’s literature to be of a high quality. As a result, I think that what exported Chinese children’s literature needs most is deeper and broader dissemination, which will allow readers to genuinely understand Chinese children’s literature and its writers. Only with such a state of affairs can Chinese children’s literature be genuinely classed as being “sent abroad.”

　　Q Now many people separate children’s science and adult science, how do you think of this?

　　A In my opinion, there’s really no need to separate between children and adult science fiction. If you specifically demarcate children’s science, then you do so to make people, and especially children, understand that said works are suitable for them to read. But in terms of foreign publicity, I think there’s no need for these concrete distinctions. They should actually be grouped together so that both these types of Chinese science can jointly be more vigorously promoted.

　　Q What kind of role does children’s science work play in education?

　　A Presently, the whole of our country attaches great attention to children’s reading materials and the efforts to further promote it are always increasing. But an issue I’ve noticed is that while parents, teachers, and even children attach great importance to reading children’s literature, there still needs to be more attention paid to the recognition and promotion of scientific topics. Consequently, in the process of promoting children’s reading materials, I think more efforts should be put into promoting science books for young generation.