郑渊洁从1977年开始文学创作。其笔下的皮皮鲁、鲁西西、舒克、贝塔和罗克在中国拥有亿万读者,连成年人也被吸引。其童话被誉为“适合全家人阅读”。
Although it’s 19 years since Zheng Yuanjie wrote his first fairy tale, his fictional characters have not aged at all and Zheng is still hard at work and since he started writing, tens of millions of Chinese have grown up reading his stories about the naughty but kind-hearted boy Pipi Lu and his little sister Lu Xixi.
Zheng Yuanjie dropped out of the primary school after four years and joined the army at 15. Five years later the soldier quit the army and went to work in a factory to watch over water pumps. Several years later when he heard that publishing houses were paying good money for new works, he began mailing his poems to publishers all over the country. After countless failures, he finally had one poem published in Fenshui, a magazine in Shanxi Province. This encouraged him to continue to write until he became an editor for a Beijing-based magazine.
By 1984, Zheng Yuanjie’ s works had appeared in more than newspapers and magazines. When the writer was refused a pay rise he began thinking about setting up a new magazine devoted to his works. The magazine eventually became the “King of Fairy Tales” and the first issue came out in 1984 with Zheng Yuanjie as the only writer. When it was published it was the only magazine in China with only one writer!
The magazine for children which Zheng Yuanjie founded has been publishing for 19 years. At its peak, it had a monthly circulation of over 1 million copies. Through the magazine children in China get to know Pipi Lu, Lu Xixi, Shuke the Mouse and Rock the Wolf and Zheng’s tales continue to attract millions of adults as well as children.
Talking of his success, Zheng Yuanjie says,“Even people who do cleaning work can write fairy tales. And they can even make better work than me. The problem is that no one encourages them to do so. The most essential thing that people seek is appreciation by others. That is what largely decides one’s success or failure.”
Help:
peak n. the point of greatest success circulation n. the number of copies of a newspaper, magazine or book sold at one time
appreciation n. an understanding of the importance or meaning of something