Sun Zhenfu, president of Phoenix Publishing and Media Group, attends the award ceremony of the second Phoenix Literature Prize.

The second Phoenix Literature Prize announced its winners in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, on March 17.

Five books stood out from 150 nominated works, including Peace by Ge Shuiping, Night Shipping on Deep Sea by Zhu Wenying, Ruins and Dogs by Wang Binbin, Son of Lies by Cai Jun, and Zhifu: History of William Milne by Wa Dang.

Li Jingze, vice-chairman of the China Writers Association, delivers a speech at the second Phoenix Literature Prize ceremony.

The award ceremony culminated with a speech delivered by Li Jingze, vice-chairman of the China Writers Association, who said that the emergence of chatbots such as GPT-4 will lead to great changes in human civilization.

He noted that writers should abandon all hackneyed and stereotyped expressions and reflect on what creation is, what literature is, and what a machine cannot do.

Writer Su Tong, final judge of the Phoenix Literature Prize, said in his speech that publishing houses are indispensible to a writer's career and that "phoenix" is the perfect new name for Jiangsu People's Publishing, predecessor of PPMG.

The third edition of the Phoenix Literature Prize is launched.

Su believes that the phoenix represents fictional art and that the spirit of the phoenix is in some ways also the spirit of literature, as they both are beautiful, imaginative, and fictional.

Luo Weizhang, winner of the first Phoenix Literature Prize, shared his experiences as a writer. He said that writers need to face different complex lives and must learn to find kindness, beauty and value in these lives.

The second Phoenix Literature Prize was sponsored by Phoenix Publishing and Media Group and organized by Phoenix Literature & Art Publishing Ltd.