Food delivery rider wins China's top literary prize

A postulation of poems, scribbled on slips of insubstantial material between food deliveries, has earned Wang Jibing one of China’s highest literary honours. Low Flight, inspired by the everyday challenges faced by transportation riders, secured the Lu Xun Literary Prize – an award named after the writer widely regarded as the father of modern Chinese literature. Wang, 56, began working as a delivery rider around 2019 and subsequently attracted attention on social media for his poems and essays. He belongs to a growing cohort of blue‑collar workers whose literary output offers a window into the pressures of China’s expansive gig economy. For Wang, the prestigious accolade arrives after several difficult decades spent in an unconventional line of work. “I held my enactment and felt highly nervous… Once it was revealed, everything was settled,” Wang told authorities media outlet Global Times connected 15 July, erstwhile quality broke that helium had won the grant - adding that the media attraction astir him had created a batch of intelligence unit connected him. The monetary award for recipients of the Lu Xun Literary Prize is not publicly disclosed; however, as of 2014 it amounted to 100,000 Chinese yuan (approximately $14,800 or £11,000). Born in Jiangsu province, Wang left school as a teenager owing to financial hardship at home. He held a variety of jobs – factory work, scavenging for discarded items, and selling goods at a street stall – before becoming a food delivery rider. His passion for reading endured, and over the past decade he has shared his own poems and essays on social platforms. In 2022, his poem “Man in a Hurry” went viral online, inspired by a 2019 incident in which he spent hours on a frustrating delivery after a customer entered an incorrect address. In 2023 he published his debut poetry collection, Man in a Hurry: Poems of a Food Delivery Rider. Despite winning the award, Wang told the outlet he has no intention of quitting his job, adding that he plans to continue working until he turns 60. “Financially I don't request this occupation to marque a living, but I emotion the vibe of the enactment and it keeps maine fit,” said the Global Times report. “I privation a down-to-earth beingness and the grant volition ne'er alteration who I am.” Low Flight, released in 2024, comprises poems drawn from interviews and surveys conducted with roughly 200 delivery riders. One line reads: “Who says spreading your wings means flying high? Flying debased is besides flying,” goes 1 of the lines successful his poems. Wang’s achievement coincides with a rising number of blue‑collar workers in China who have begun to make their mark in the literary sphere in recent years. I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, a 2023 memoir by former courier Hu Anyan, became a runaway bestseller domestically and also attracted media coverage overseas; an English translation appeared last year. Another work – I am Fan Yusu – an autobiographical account of a migrant worker’s personal struggle, swept the Chinese internet in 2017. The response was so overwhelming that Fan temporarily withdrew from public view amid incessant media requests.