Chinese food delivery rider bags country's top literary honour

He is a man racing against time. Somehow, he has learned to catch it on paper.

Wang Jibing, a 56-year-old delivery rider, has earned one of China's most prestigious literary honors with verses born in the fleeting moments spent waiting for meals to be delivered, elevators and customers.

His poetry collection, "Di Chu Fei Xing," which translates as "Low Flight," was announced one of the winners of the ninth edition of Lu Xun Literature Prize on last Wednesday (15 July). This collection captures the unvarnished realities and emotional subtleties of his life as one of the country's more than 10 million food delivery riders.

Fresh from his literary win, Wang told the media that what he really wants to do on this special day is simple: to hop back on his scooter and get back to deliveries. "Only by staying grounded can one find the clearest state of mind for writing," he said.

The coveted literary prize is named after Lu Xun, a literary titan known for his piercing, unsparing chronicles of early 20th-century Chinese society. Awarded every four years, the prize recognizes outstanding works across various genres, including novella, short story, literary reportage, poetry, prose, literary theory and review, and literary translation.

Zhang Yiwu, a professor of Chinese literature at Peking University, highlighted the significance of Wang's triumph. Wang's poetry, he said, stays close to contemporary life, giving voice to a group often neglected in society while also illustrating the profound changes sweeping China.

Under the algorithm

Born in 1969 in east China's Jiangsu Province, Wang dropped out of school during junior high. To make a living, he worked as a construction worker, a sand dredger, a street vendor and a scrap collector. Yet, he never lost his appetite for reading, often lingering at secondhand book stalls and sifting through discarded newspapers.

He and his wife eventually settled in Kunshan, Jiangsu. They ran a small store, saved for years, and took out a mortgage on an apartment -- a foothold they were determined to keep. In 2019, hearing that delivering food could pay well, Wang decided to give it a shot. At 50, he became the oldest courier at his station.

As a delivery rider, Wang races through the city on his e-bike. The delivery countdown in the app's system serves as an invisible whip, relentlessly driving him forward. It is this algorithmic pressure that inspired his breakout poem "Man in a Hurry."

The piece stemmed from a frustrating delivery experience. A customer had provided the wrong address, forcing Wang to make multiple trips. As he sat at a red light on his way back, simmering with irritation, a few lines flashed through his mind:

"Driving wind from the air, blades from the wind, fire from the bones ... No seasons for people racing against time, only one stop and the next."

In 2022, the verses went viral after a fellow poetry lover posted them online.
Ordinary voices

Wang's victory reflects a broader shift in the landscape of Chinese literature. This year, he was far from the only grassroots writer to be shortlisted for the Lu Xun Literature Prize. A collection of essays by a market vendor earned a nomination in the prose category, while a short story by an internet author made the final cut.

To Dai Zhishen, a literary critic, the shortlisting of writers with such diverse writing backgrounds and social identities for this prize signals a shift in the literary evaluation system.

"It sends a clear signal that literature is not an unattainable luxury reserved for the elite," he noted. "Rather, it is a wild art of words that can thrive in markets, narrow alleyways, factory floors and across the internet."

For Wang, the emergence of grassroots writers like himself carries a social significance that far outweighs its literary merit. "Our connection to real life is perhaps deeper, and our expressions more sincere," he said.

More than 80 million people work in China's new forms of employment, according to official data. Apart from food delivery riders, the group also includes ride-hailing drivers and live streamers, who have become a vital force in keeping cities running, sustaining economic flows and driving consumption.

Like Wang, they race against time every day. Ride-hailing drivers navigate endless urban gridlocks, while live streamers perform late into the night before glowing screens. Many carry the weight of a family's livelihood on their shoulders.

As their numbers have grown, so too has policymakers' attention to their rights and interests. In recent years, regulators have introduced measures to curb punishing delivery algorithms, improve transparency on platform commission caps for ride-hailing drivers, and expand access to social security programs for gig workers.

Service centers and other facilities for gig workers have also sprung up across China. In Beijing alone, more than 14,000 service hubs offer them a place to sit, drink water and take shelter from the rain.

Flying low, soaring in verse

Once on his rounds, Wang wishes he could squeeze 61 minutes out of every hour. Yet, as a Chinese literary gazette noted in its review, what he drew from this breathless race against time was not haste, frustration or complaint, but a quiet tenderness.

In his prize-winning collection, Wang affirms the value of his own survival, writing: "Low flight is also a flight ... The sound low on the ground is the symphony for all things striving upward."

His poems are populated by everyday figures. In one piece, moved by a solitary ant braving a downpour, he draws a quiet parallel: "An ant must have its own despair or mission to appear in a rainstorm, just like a delivery rider on a wet slope, desperately shielding the delivery box on the back of his scooter."

"I can't imagine myself as a full-time writer because I know I would not do it well since my inspiration all comes from my delivery job," Wang revealed.

A translated version of the title poem of his winning collection, "Low Flight," has been published online by the literary magazine The Baffler.

They say life is short, and running makes it seem longer, said Wang. He intends to stay in the trade, running poetically from order to order.

Perhaps nowhere is his philosophy of low flight better expressed than in his verse: "As much snow life piles upon me, I will meet just as many springs."