Wild 1979: From Hunting and Fishing to Literary Greatness

Chen Tuo had finally made it as a producer, only for an investor's extreme-cold challenge in the Northeast to go disastrously wrong. Reborn in 1979 at a youth settlement in the forest region of the Great Northern Wilderness, he became a roving youth with no official status. There was no chance of returning to the city, and no jobs to be had. Food was scarce, and the firewood was poor, too. Alone, he had no choice but to take on a real extreme-cold challenge. One man in a wooden cabin brought to mind Haizi's poem about facing the sea and refusing to be a beast of burden. And so, a different road opened up before him. Chen Tuo turned his many fishing and hunting adventures into columns in newspapers and magazines. The bitter cold and blizzards of the Great Northern Wilderness. The twists and turns of a life spent fishing and hunting. How could ambitious young people learn about the Great Northern Wilderness through words alone? They had to experience it for themselves to feel the warmth between the lines. Starting tomorrow, I'll be a person... The most literate hunter. The fisherman with the biggest writing checks. The writer with the best aim. The young guide with the toughest skills...