Everything I told you about that mountain by Liu Chenjun Publisher: Jiuzhou Publishing House

Introduction · · · · · ·
Traveling starts with doubts, but life answers with writing.

Pure and elusive, this is the spiritual journey of a mountain boy.

"If you die one day / I think I will go traveling / I have to make sure whether the world is good / and worth your temptation / instead of experiencing it"

⛰Editor’s Recommendation

☆ A heart returning from the mountains and a book of new life

In the spring of 2017, Liu Chenjun and his travel companion Liang Shengyue set out from India and went on a mountaineering trip to Nepal. On the way, they encountered a rare heavy snowfall in that season and were trapped in a cave. When the search and rescue team found the two on the 47th day of being trapped, Liu Chenjun had passed away three days ago. The manuscript he carried with him was brought back by his travel companion. With the consent of his family, Liu Chenjun's close friends cooperated with Taiwan Chunshan Publishing House to select his travel notes, poems, letters, and diaries, and compiled them into this book "Everything I Told You About That Mountain".

☆ A child's fierce exploration, a masterpiece of Taiwan's natural literature

We can see a teenager's pure pursuit of the unknown, and we can also feel the great philosophy far beyond his age. Liu Chenjun takes the mountain as the core ("The ridgeline is / a mountain has accumulated thousands of years of silence"), extending from the entity to a broader situation ("The value of a travel companion is that silence and back view prove this huge world to each other"); when he first arrived in India, he saw through the extinction from the rush of the local people ("Death is a conspiracy of the city"). Along with the external steps, the inner dialectic is always fierce, and he still does not stop writing when he is trapped. Liu Chenjun fully demonstrates the natural writing that is inseparable from trekking, thinking, life and death.

☆ Go beyond private remembrance and refine the positive significance of public publishing

Faced with reports of an unprecedented scale of deviation, the Taiwan team concealed the positioning of the commemorative collection and transformed it into a collection of new writers; breaking up the date order and simulating the compilation method of getting to know a person. They returned to the essence of literature, responding to public memory bit by bit in a meticulous and calm manner, and reconstructing the true original appearance of a writer.

☆ The original intention of the distant mountains, the pure and eternal calm binding in the vastness

The designer used the solidity of the outer cover "high-grade fine grid" and the inner cover "economic cow card" and introduced the smoothness of the waist cover "Japanese advertising paper" to create a subtle and balanced touch. Visually, the blue sky, sand hills, and black land are outlined with gold-plated edges in the grandeur, calling for the mountain in everyone's heart.

⛰ Introduction

19-year-old Liu Chenjun is always on his way to the mountains. This young man calls traveling "moving" and mountain climbing "walking on mountain roads". He explores the world with pure gestures and words. From India to Nepal, Liu Chenjun reveals the emotional tugs along the way; trapped in a cave, Liu Chenjun embraces fear but still looks to the future; and Liu Chenjun never stops reflecting on life, literature, and love. All of this is preserved in the travel notes, poems, and notes in the book, allowing people to witness a keen and deep soul, and also feel its perseverance and confusion, pursuit and sadness.

⛰Celebrity recommendation

☆ His writing can no longer be measured only by literature, but is the naked radiance of life. What is rare is that he always has a high degree of consciousness as a writer, always staying, wandering, and looking back. He is a cold dissector of himself and the world he has experienced. At the same time, this is the burning fire of a pure heart. He not only understands the mountains, but also the state of people. He writes about the ordinary lives that intersect in the snow and mud, just like writing his own palm lines, deeply and experiencedly following the veins of language into the veins of the world, far exceeding the accuracy that can be achieved at his age. —— Liao Weitong (Hong Kong writer)

☆ Extreme disintegration and staring, almost cruel, honesty becomes the first and final pure intention, in the letters with friends, in the whispers with lovers, in the deep interaction with the mountains and forests, all kinds of records are unanswered questions from the inner heart. Essays, however, are able to penetrate the back of the paper, even to the extent of defeating oneself and embarrassing others... The book is full of the living words of the innocent, who have not been incorporated, are eager to resist, are fearless, and constantly empty themselves to expand the travel territory again, including unexplored mountains, unreached places, and the self-reflection that has never been interrupted. ——Lian Mingwei (Taiwanese writer)

☆ How to face death and create a legacy after death has become the difficult problem that the Taiwan editorial team has taken on. It is here that the editorial team has demonstrated the meticulousness and height of their interpretation. In terms of the most basic and important concept, this book is not positioned as a commemorative collection, but rather as a new literary figure who is publishing a book for the first time. Therefore, the compilation and publication of this book proves the unique rebirth of an author. ——Tong Weiguo (Taiwanese writer)

⛰Media Recommendation

☆ The author immersed himself in the world of mountains, listening to the life and death of all things, practicing to touch the indescribable reality of the senses with words, until his body died. The words are as pure as a blade that cannot leave fingerprints. Although most of the cuts are debris, it still makes people feel the boy's persistence in writing during his lifetime, bright and regretless. In this mountaineering record that is like a death show, the author exhausted his energy and raised the great questions of existence in every subtle feeling, indifferently and tragically, igniting a cold and strange fire of sacrificing one's life for writing. ——"Openbook Reading Journal" (Taiwan book review media)

☆ Liu Chenjun's heart is tied to the mountains, and his soul also perishes in the mountains. This book collects the travel notes, poems, letters and diaries to relatives and friends, essays, etc. of Liu Chenjun, a Taiwanese mountain friend, before his death, recording the bits and pieces before the end of his life. Even though the whole book is inevitably shrouded by the author's gaze at the end, he still walked out as a walker. But he is a walker and a dreamer at the same time. He follows, examines, and then finds that he can only recognize the closest things, such as palm lines, or the back of his lover's neck. The mountain is complete, the road is firm, but what Chenjun has is a sensitivity to fragmentation and the impossibility of completeness. This sensitivity is simply too great in contrast to his youth. ——"Zihua" (Hong Kong Literary Magazine)

⛰Award Record

☆ Won the 2019 "Taiwan Openbook Good Book Award" Chinese creation

☆ Won the 2019 "Taiwan Mirror Culture Book of the Year" Chinese creation

☆ Won the 2020 "Taiwan Literature Award" Golden Classic Award

☆ Selected as the 2019 "Taiwan Eslite Reading Artisan Award" and the most popular book among bookstore artisans

☆ Selected as one of the top ten in the 2019 "Taiwan Friendly Books" annual sales ranking of literature

☆ Shortlisted for the 2020 Hong Kong Renaissance Award - Pure Literature Award