Published on: 2026-07-16
Source: People’s Republic of China — Translation
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Beijing, July 16 /Xinhua/ — He is a person who competes with time and has somehow learned to capture it on paper.
Van Zhibin, a 56-year-old food delivery worker, was awarded one of China’s most prestigious literary prizes for poetry born in fleeting moments of waiting while the food is being prepared for delivery, the elevator arrives, or the customer opens the door.
His poetry collection “Flying Low” was announced as one of the winners of the ninth Lu Xun Prize on Wednesday. This collection reflects the harsh reality and emotional nuances of his life as one of more than 10 million food delivery workers in the country.
Immediately after his literary triumph, Van Zhibin told journalists that on this special day he actually only wished for one thing: to get on his electric scooter and return to making deliveries. “Only in ordinary life can one find the best state of mind for creativity,” he noted.
The prestigious literary award is named after Lu Xun – a literary titan renowned for his piercing, merciless chronicles of early 20th-century Chinese society. The prize is awarded every four years for outstanding works in various genres, including novellas, short stories, literary reportage, poetry, prose, literary theory and criticism, as well as literary translation.
Professor Zhang You of Peking University emphasized the significance of Wang Zhibin’s victory. According to him, Wang Zhibin’s poetry is close to modern life, gives a voice to a group often neglected in society, and at the same time reflects the profound changes that have swept through China.
Under the pressure of algorithms
Born in 1969 in Jiangsu Province in eastern China, Wang Zhibin dropped out after junior high school. To make a living, he worked as a construction worker, sand digger, street vendor, and scrap metal collector. However, he never lost his interest in reading, often lingering by secondhand book stalls and leafing through newspapers he picked up in the shade of trees.
Together with his wife, he settled in the city of Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. They ran a small shop, saved for several years, and took out a mortgage on an apartment, which became their anchor that they were determined to keep. In 2019, after learning that food delivery paid well, Wang Zhibin decided to give it a try. At 50 years old, he became the oldest courier at his station.
Working as a courier, he rushes through the city on an electric scooter. The delivery countdown timer in the app acts as an invisible whip, relentlessly urging him on. It was this pressure from the algorithms that inspired him to create the poem “The Man Chasing Time,” which became a breakthrough.
This work was born out of an unpleasant delivery experience. The client gave an incorrect address, and the poet had to make several trips. On the way back, stuck at a red traffic light and boiling with irritation, he came up with a few lines:
“From the air I drive out the wind, It cuts mercilessly like a razor, Its force breaks bones, And sweat is pouring like hail… A person who chases time Has no seasons of the year, There is only the path from one route to another.”
In 2022, poems became popular, “going viral” on the internet after being published by a poetry enthusiast.
Voices of ordinary people
The victory of Wang Zhibin reflects broader changes in Chinese literature. This year, he was far from the only writer nominated for the Lu Xun Prize. A collection of essays by a market trader was nominated in the prose category, while a short story by one of the internet authors made it to the finals.
According to literary critic Dai Zhishen, the inclusion of writers with such diverse backgrounds and social identities in the award shortlist indicates a shift in the system of literary evaluation.
“This is a clear signal that literature is not an unattainable luxury meant only for the elite,” he noted. “On the contrary, it is a ‘wild’ art of the word that can thrive in markets, narrow alleys, factory workshops, and on the internet.”
For Wan Zhibin, the emergence of writers like himself has an important social significance, far beyond literary merits. “Our connection with real life may be deeper, and our expressions more sincere,” he said.
According to official data, more than 80 million people in China work in new forms of employment. In addition to food delivery workers, this group includes taxi drivers and streamers, who have become a vital force in maintaining the normal functioning of cities and economic flows and stimulating consumption.
Just like our poet, they compete with time every day. Taxi drivers overcome endless urban traffic jams, and streamers perform late into the night before glowing screens. Many bear the burden of supporting their families on their shoulders.
As their numbers grow, so does the attention of politicians to their rights and interests. In recent years, regulators have introduced measures to limit strict requirements of delivery algorithms, increase transparency of commission fees for taxi drivers, and expand access to social security programs for platform workers.
Service centers and other facilities for freelancers have also appeared all across China. In Beijing alone, there are more than 14,000 such spots where they can find a place to sit, drink water, and take shelter from the rain.
Flying low, soars in verses
During his shift, Wan Zhibin would like to squeeze 61 minutes out of every hour. However, as noted in the review by “China Literary Gazette,” from this frantic race against time he derived not haste, disappointment, or dissatisfaction, but a quiet tenderness.
In his award-winning collection, he asserts the value of his own survival, writing: “Low flight is also flight… That low sound, coming from the ground, like a symphony of all living things striving upward.”
His poems are filled with ordinary people. In one of them, moved by the struggle of a lone ant against the rain, he draws a quiet parallel: “The ant must have its own desperation or mission to appear in the rain, just like the courier on a wet slope, desperately protecting the box on the scooter’s rack.”
“I can’t imagine myself as a professional writer because I know I wouldn’t succeed, as all my inspiration comes from my work as a courier,” admitted Wang Zhibin.
The translation of the title poem from his collection “Low Flying” was published online by the literary magazine “The Baffler.”
“They say life is short, but running makes it longer,” said Wang Zhibin. He intends to stay in this profession, running poetically from one order to another.
Perhaps nowhere is his philosophy of low flight expressed better than in his poems: “No matter how much snow life accumulates, I will meet an equal amount of springs.” -0-
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