ince very young, I have regarded literature as a “he”, first a stranger to be looked upon from afar, then a lover to be teased and petted in heart.

I can’t recall exactly how I first met him, but I have this feeling that I must have known him since I was really little, maybe 5 or 6 at most. Back then I was a bookworm for real, never tired of browsing those illustrated fairy tales by Andersen or immersing myself into The Arabian Nights. It seemed to me that all those stories, with vivid descriptions and details, were tiny men who grabbed me at full stretch, making it hard to let go once I started reading. I would dream about the characters in the book; I would wonder how the destiny should be slowly unveiled—sometimes the blazing curiosity and anxiety gnawed at me for days, clawing, scratching to be relieved, until I relished the last words and closed the book; I would miss the characters afterwards as if they were long lost friends. That’s how I gradually changed my feeling towards literature—from almost sacred admiration to intimate attachment.

However, it was Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea that disclosed his hidden charm and pulled me closer to him. With no illustrations at all, the book seemed quite a challenge for such a half-illiterate girl as me, yet it turned out that I got so fascinated by the struggle between the old man Santiago and the devilish sharks that I read this novel word by word three times, literally. And I guess it is since then that I have developed the preference for non-illustration novels, that I have come to realize the truth—literature, in his bareness, is most fabulous.

It adds to my sadness that now I can no longer be so proud as to call myself a bookworm in that sometimes other trifles simply take up my spare time. Nevertheless, I have picked up writing and it seems to me that one way or another my love for literature flows in a hoop that never ends.

I start to create my own stories: sometimes those stories secretly reflect a glimpse of my life; sometimes they are totally the production of fantasy and imagination. Even when I occasionally run out of inspiration, it’d still be a bliss for me to note down merely my laughters and tears. And my laughters and tears are exactly the most real things about me, no exaggeration, no glorification, no distortion.

Amazingly, the more I write, the more I love writing—it’s like an addiction too strong to subdue, too tempting to terminate. I write down every piece of idea, sometimes a stream of ideas, whenever it bumps into my mind. From time to time I wake up at midnight, taking pains to drag myself from sleep, and grab a pen to keep track of my flowing thoughts; I write as fast as I can in fear of their sudden disappearance, and usually I would lose all my sleepiness after several rounds of this.

Nonetheless, I am all willing to “toil” and I even enjoy it.  I guess it’s because through writing I get to pour out the blazing passion and craze for words deep down, and more importantly, I can be recognized as part of literature. And, I dare ask, doesn’t love make one a part of the other?

Sometimes I imagine that when the doomsday eventually comes, I’d be stuck in ruins of steel bars and stones; it may be dark, sadly. But—if during the daytime a ray of sunlight happens to slant through the cracks, then I’d pray for a book with me. Be it thrilling adventure, heartbreaking romance or dull history—literature of any kind will save me—my flesh and soul—just as well.

It is he, my hero, coming to my rescue.

 This is one of the featured articles by SES Writing Workshop. The author is an undergraduate student of the School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University (SISU).