------Program code: DO-080612-01572 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
06-12-2008 08:38
The old yellowed document describes a strange future world where a man-made egg could be as big as a watermelon. Seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old, everything about this future world is revealed to the readers of the book.
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The author was Ye Yonglie, who was a third-year student of chemistry at Peking University at the time. Ye used to write about chemistry for the popular science book "100,000 Whys".
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Ye Yonglie wrote his first popular science book in 1959. It was called “300 Stories in Science”. However, it wasn’t published, because it wasn’t considered exciting enough. Undeterred, he set about writing a science fiction tale, which would be called Little Smart’s Adventures. He sent the manuscript to the Shanghai Children’s Publishing House, and waited for a response.
After graduating from university, Ye Yonglie was assigned to the Shanghai Science and Education Film Studio as a writer and director. But because of his family background, he was forced to give up his writing.
On March the 18th, 1978, the National Conference on Science opened in Beijing. More than 6000 scientists from all over China gathered at the Great Hall of the People. The conference agreed that science and technology was the key to China’s modernization. China’s scientists, now given renewed hope in the future, dubbed that March, the "Spring of Science."
Many books that had vanished several years earlier, were reprinted. And more and more new science fiction was being published, such as Zheng Wenguang’s ‘Flying to Sagittarius’ and ‘Divine Wings’, and Tong Enzheng’s ‘Mist Over the Ancient Valley’ and ‘Visitors from 50,000 Years Ago’.
Also in 1978, in the 8th edition of People’s Literature, Tong Enzheng’s short story ‘Dead Light Over the Coral Island’ was published. It would later win the best short story of the year award.
Meanwhile, the popular science book “100,000 Whys” was being reprinted. Ye Yonglie, by this time a director at the Shanghai Science and Education Film Studio, began work again on the script he had first started writing 17 years earlier. After making some alterations, he sent it to a publisher, with a new title ‘Little Smart’s Adventure in the Future’.
Little Smart’s Adventure in the Future was published in 1979. It was the first work of science fiction to appear after the Cultural Revolution. The cover was black, designed by an art editor at the publishing house.
