The importance of being earnest

Li's six-year farming experience in Dijiahe gave him a distinctive understanding of history.

"What is history? History is the millet turning yellow thousands of times and the sorghum turning red thousands of times," he says.

"The 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization is, in a sense, a 5,000-year history of agricultural civilization. Only in the past half-century has large-scale industrialization taken place. This process, formed in the context of globalization, has prompted me to understand the shared fate of farmers and their farming tools," Li says, explaining the inspiration for the book.

The book contains 14 short stories, each named after a farming tool, such as a pickaxe, shovel, hoe, sickle, axe, and shoulder pole. Li displays the sorrow and rebirth of a 5,000-year agricultural civilization in this "farming tools exhibition" on paper.

Homeland Lost Forever gathers essays ranging from travel notes in Northern Europe to memoirs and reflections on language. The collection reveals, through restraint and clarity, the purity of modern Chinese prose.

A Step Beyond Common Sense, also an essay collection, includes observations on everyday life with his wife Jiang Yun and daughter Li Di'an, reflections on films, and responses after reading works by Lu Xun and US writer William Faulkner. With sincerity, Li Rui showcases the intellectual beauty of Chinese prose.

He says that he is a pessimist, but this pessimism is the attitude a sincere person holds toward people, fate, themselves and history.

Li Rui aspires in his works to portray a history that reveals the truth that "humans are rational creatures, yet the history created by humanity is often irrational. This irrational history has swallowed countless lives. It's a dilemma faced by everyone, not just by individuals, but by all of humanity as a whole".