On the Need for More Young Essayists要培养新的杂文作家①◎ Liao Mosha◎　廖沫沙In recent years, I have seldom written essays.

During the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, however, I wrote more.

In those days, as a newspaper editor, I often worked on the night shift and wrote a great many essays, so that, later, when compiling a collection of my works, I was astonished to find myself to have authored so many essays, some of which I could not even remember.

I have, therefore, come to realize that working on a newspaper or a magazine could make a prolific writer of yourself.

The same was true of Lu Xun.

It was not until he became editor of the magazine The Tatler that he started writing essays.

Nowadays, as the editorial departments of newspapers and periodicals are generally well staffed, the people there should be in a position to write more.

Some newspapers and magazines are so starved of contributions that they have to send out people to various places like Beijing and Shanghai to canvass for support.

That is no answer to the problem at all.

The best way is for the editorial staff to do the writing themselves and turn out more.

The former Xinhua Daily, where we used to work, had a staff of about 20.

Everyone of us wrote, including not only the reporters and editors, but also the typesetters, proofreaders and reference-library people.

这几年我没有写什么杂文。

三十年代末期和四十年代写得多些，那时办报纸，经常值夜班，写了不少。

编集子时，自己也感到吃惊，竟写了这么多②，有的自己都记不得了。

我体会，自己办报、办刊物时，就能写得多些。

鲁迅开始写杂文也是从办 语丝　③时开始的。

现在报刊编辑部人都不少，应该自己多写④。

现在有些刊物，派人到北京上海各处跑，约文章，等米下锅⑤，这不可靠⑥，应该自己动笔，自己出产品。

我们当年编 新华日报　，总共二十来人，记者、编辑都写，搞排版的、搞资料的、还有做校对工作的，每个人都写文章。

On the other hand, emphasis should be placed on arousing young people's enthusiasm for writing.

Instead of rashly rejecting manuscripts, editors should go over them carefully.

Manuscripts which are acceptable but in need of improvement should be allowed publication after they have been revised and polished by the editorial department.

Young contributors could thus be spurred on to ever greater efforts to write.

That is the way to bring up new writers.

It is inadvisable to rely solely on a handful of veteran writers.

Many of our writers owe their success to the help and encouragement of their predecessors.

Most young writers today go in for fiction or drama, but practically none engage in essay writing.

That is no good.

Let more young essayists come to the fore!

另一方面，要大力培养青年人写稿的积极性。

编辑对来稿要仔细看，不要轻易就摔掉。

有可取的⑦，要帮他加工、改好，发表他的稿子。

发表一次，积极性就来了，以后就会常来稿。

我们要用这种方法培养新的作者，不能只依靠几个老的⑧。

我们许多作家都是前辈培养出来的⑨。

现在新作家中写小说的多，写剧本的也较多，写杂文的简直就没有。

那不好了，我们要更广泛地培养写杂文的新作家⑩。

廖沫沙的短文 要培养新的杂文作家　写于1982年。

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