The official launch of Blancpain-Imaginist Literary Prize

MANUFACTURE DE HAUTE HORLOGERIE endeavors to discover young talents of Chinese contemporary literature

BEIJING, March 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ Today, the Blancpain-Imaginist Literary Prize was officially launched by Blancpain, the fine watchmaking brand from Swiss, and Imaginist, an influential publishing brand in China. The mission is to establish a long-lasting, authoritative and influential literature award to stimulate international dialogues in mainland China, while discovering and encouraging excellent Chinese writers under 45 years harboring great potentials. A total of 300,000 yuan (RMB) will be conferred on the winner to help him or her to focus on literature creation. The launch ceremony and the forum was hosted by Mr. Leung Mentao, Blancpain's culture ambassador, and attended by Ms. Hu Yi, Blancpain's brand representative. The review committee consists of renowned Chinese writers Yan Lianke, Jin Yucheng, Tang Nuo, Xu Zidong andGao Xiaosong, who had topical dialogues on "no regret on teenage works"as they looked back their early years of literature creation.

As the MANUFACTURE DE HAUTE HORLOGERIE founded in 1735 with a history of 283 years and a creator of classic timepieces, Blancpain makes its own understanding of "Classic" which transcends matter and culminates in belief, aesthetics and humanity, while the word "Creating" means that, over the past three centuries, Blancpain utilized its inspiration and techniques in an indefatigable effort to pursue the perfection of the structure, details and even themes for every single timepiece in order to achieve top quality standards. Both these two concepts are essentially identical to the core of classic literature.

As an influential publishing brand in mainland China, Imaginist has stayed committed over many years to discovering the best Chinese writers, providing dignified publication to works of ideological depth, and publishing time-tested literature classics. Imaginist has not only nourished the minds of generations of readers but also has served as a bastion to gather the contemporary young writers of the strongest vitality and of the greatest capacity for thinking.

Blancpain and Imaginist share the same virtues of cherishing devoted perseverance, while believing the test of time, and expecting the power of the youth - the participation of young people in any area is always an important symbol to determine whether the industry has a promising future. The Blancpain-Imaginist Literary Prize aims to discover future talents for Chinese contemporary literature, to provide a road to international arena for excellent writers, and to ensure the inheritance of Chinese literature classics, thus leading the public, especially the young, to pay more attention to and have more thought about Chinese contemporary literature. Over the many past years, Blancpain has been actively initiating deep projects related to culture, of which literature is one of the most important parts. This time, it is no coincidence for Blancpain to resort to literature for its development.

This reflects Blancpain's sense of responsibility as well as its optimism: literature will never lose its vitality and charm, just as mechanical watches will never be completely displaced by quartz and digital watches. In literature, or other fields that demand creativity, the Chinese young generation, whose energy has been accumulating, are capable of creating extraordinary works and, on the other hand, are eager to enjoy great works, whether it is a novel or a wrist watch.

At the press conference, following rules for the award were announced:

• Qualified applicants for the "Blancpain-Imaginist Literary Prize" are writers who are under the age of 45 and have published works in simplified Chinese. The Prize offers a grant of 300,000 RMB to the grand winner to help him or her focus on writing.
• Entries are restricted to novels of all themes, including pure literature, crime, detective and science fiction.
• Entries can be submitted by a publisher, who can submit as many as twoworks, each for one author, or a writer, who can submit one of his or her own works.
• Entries should be works published between January 1, 2017 and April 30, 2018. The deadline for submission is May 31, 2018.
• On August 15, 2018, the review committee will release a short list of entries, consisting of two to three nominations from each member of the committee; on September 1, 2018, the committee will vote for a finalist of 5 candidates. The grand winner (one) will be announced at the live awarding ceremony to be held on September 22, 2018.

Applicants may submit materials starting today and log onto Imaginist website: www.ilixiangguo.com, or follow Imaginist and Blancpain on WeChat and Sina Weibo for more details and updates. To stay tuned, you may also follow theChinese hashtag of "Blancpain-Imaginist Literary Prize" on Sina Weibo.

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