In the spotlight, Wang Jibing is a poet honored with the Lu Xun Literature Prize. On the streets and in the lanes, he is a food delivery rider braving wind and rain. Whatever the circumstances, his passion for poetry remains undimmed — a glimmer of light that helps him face life's hardships head-on.
"Not all wings can soar high into the sky. Flying low is still flying." In Wang, who is about to turn 57, these two sides of life — poetic aspirations and the everyday hustle of the marketplace — have found a way to coexist.
Now settled in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, Wang left school before completing junior high. He worked at construction sites, collected scrap, ran street stalls, and opened small shops. For much of his life, he made ends meet through physical labor.
In 1988, while working away from home, he began experimenting with writing. Unable to afford books, he would squat beside street bookstalls, read a few pages at a time and later reconstruct what he had read from memory. Even as he struggled to make ends meet, he remained consumed by the urge to write.
After he returned to his hometown in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, his family, unable to understand his literary ambitions and worried about his future, burned the manuscript of his novel, which ran to more than 200,000 words. Wang did not submit another manuscript for publication for 25 years.
While collecting scrap, he was reluctant to sell the old newspapers he came across. Instead, he would sit under a tree with fellow workers and read them, absorbing their contents one word at a time. The literary spark within him never died.
"Literature is a piece of candy in my life," he says, smiling. "I never thought sticking to writing was tough. Love itself is the reason."
