On 14 June 2022, we received information from Lebanon, the organizers of "the twentieth picking season of Naji Naaman literary prizes (2022)" announced to the world in English, French and Arabic：Voted on by the Nāgi Oman Cultural Foundation (FGC), the Naji Naaman literary prizes (2022) were announced, with 3,322 entries from 82 countries writing in multiple languages and dialects (with new entries of Hausa, Igbo, Quechua and Sambalic) . Total of 68 new winners were selected in the 20th session. Among them, the Chinese poet Zhou Zhanlin received the highest honor award (complete works)( English translation by Zhang Zhizhong) . According to reports, "Naji Naaman literary prizes" was founded in 2002, with the aim of“Revival of literature and Human Values,” the award has been awarded to the most cutting-edge international literature.

Zhou Zhanlin, born in 1964, is a member of Chinese Writers Association, Editor-in-Chief of Chinese-poetry.com, Deputy Secretary General of the Organizing Committee of Ten-thousand-Mile Chinese Poetry Travel, Vice President of World Poetic Tourism Alliance, Vice President of Chinese Modern Poetry Research Institute, Vice President and Secretary General of Chinese Scholars Painting and Calligraphy Institute, Editor-in-Chief of Chinese Scholars Painting and Calligraphy Magazine, and Vice-President of Beijing Celebrity Painting and Calligraphy Institute. He has published a full-length novel titled “One Night Lotus”, and poetry collections including “A Couple of Trees”, “You Sit Opposite Me”, “Selected Lyric Poems of Zhou Zhanlin”, “Chinese Poetry· Zhou Zhanlin”, “Blooming” and “Singing All the Way”. He has published over ten collections of essays, such as “Riding the Tide” and “Return and Transcendence”. His biographies are included in dictionaries such as “Dictionary of Chinese Writers”, “Dictionary of Chinese Poets” and “Dictionary of Chinese Novelists”. He is Editor-in-Chief of “Selected Poems of 2008 Olympic Games” by 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee. He won the 2009 Annual Poet Award of Mangzhong Literature, the Chinese Long Poetry Award, the Guo Xiaochuan Poetry Award, and the Contemporary Novel Award of the Chinese Fiction Society. Romania granted him the award of “Knight of Poetry” at the 5th Yaxi International Poetry Festival.

Selected Poems of ZHOU Zhanlin

Standing on the Hillside to Touch Homesickness

On the homeward way

The sunshine which has reached spring

Covers me with the warmth of childhood

With thick yearning I

Fondle the fertile native soil

The weak homeland in the curling kitchen smoke

Still slim and lean

The hillful of pear flowers

Is painfully white

The languid spring wind

Is gently waving the weak nerve of homeland

As if by a slip of the mind

The expectation through years becomes dropping tears

Standing on the hillside I

Seem to be standing on the edge of missing hometown

With brilliant words

To filter native feelings time and again

The kitchen smoke which has been sung in my childhood composition

Extends a gray-black little hand

To pluck the uneasiness in the depth of my heart

What is shed by the coal car

Is not only dust and poverty

I can hear

The painful groaning of blood under the wheels

Now the hillful of pear flowers offer the white invitation

Emotional movement fills my eyes

My childhood mates, their days have been sealed white

By darkness in the deep coal pit

While sweat becomes a dark river

Running year after year

Viewing from a height the form of hometown which is wasting away

A bird which is called nostalgia

Drops together with sunshine and pear flowers

Beautiful Affairs of Flowers and Fruits

When flowers are opening, the fruits are afoot

I do not know what is the beginning point

Anbanghe swamp

The infatuation free of impregnation

By means of omission

Is reserved for the blue over your sky

When I miss your name

You are growing wildly in secret

Silence will never abandon this season

Water in the lake

Falls in love with darkness of the dark earth

I break the inverted image in water

To release all illusions concerning you

The simple and happy fruits

Are like something with which I am familiar

Always makes you firm and upward

The lotus leaves filled with internal injury

Have covered the patch of water

The autumnal wind fails to obstruct

The dry lotus

From shedding solitary tears

Three geese cannot reach the river bank

There must be a perseverance

For the stubborn and chaste sunshine to shine on bankside reed

And three women who write poems

Are thrown into passion by a flowery petal

No matter how endearing are fishes in the river

Their eyes extend downward like roots

The plume chased by purity knows already

For flowers and fruits

There is a perfect ending

Yellow Jessamine

The thunder of spring

Never fails to tantalize my spring yearning

When I awake

With my blossom after blossom of timid light yellow

I dot the world covered by white snow

Oh the squirming and wiggling

Makes the sacred expectation

Befall in each spring

I wake up in spring

And open the heavy door of the season

The brilliant sunshine bloods in

The tender grass beneath the feet is whispering

For the hardened earth

To begin loosen

In the process

I will not omit all details

Oh wind, always reluctant to unload

The cold coat

With language sharp like cutting edge

I cut open my brightness which is to burst

In my slow walking

To turn my bosomful of passion

Into the soul of spring

To sprinkle it to the perfumed earth

Spring, spring

A voice is calling to me

I have heard

The clear breaking voice of winter bones

Watching opposite the bank

Willows lean here, spring swallows soar there

A beautiful elaborate-style painting

Is sprinkling in the palette of nature

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