葛水平，1966年9月生，山西沁水县山神凹人。山西省作家协会副主席。代表作有小说集《喊山》《裸地》《守望》《地气》《甩鞭》《我望灯》等，散文集《我走我在》《走过时间》《河水带走两岸》等。中篇小说《喊山》曾获第四届鲁迅文学奖、2005年度人民文学奖、《小说选刊》奖、第二届赵树理文学奖，《甩鞭》曾获《中篇小说选刊》2006年度优秀小说奖，《比风来得早》曾获2007年度《上海文学》奖，长篇小说《裸地》曾获剑门关文学奖、第五届《中国作家》鄂尔多斯文学奖，山西省五一劳动奖章等。其中小说《喊山》被改编成电影，编剧的电视剧有《平凡的世界》《盘龙卧虎高山顶》等。

　　葛水平早年随祖父出山放羊，经历了平淡而接近自然的成长。青少年时代学戏，写诗，写戏剧剧本；后写小说，写电视剧剧本；再后来画画。丰富的人生经历与艺术感知使她的写作兼具粗粝与柔美的特质，却能始终保持朴素的底色。著名评论家雷达认为，葛水平的写作与赵树理同样深受民间精神和民间伦理的浸渍，“她的中篇气魄比较大，刚柔相济，在她笔下，太行山的世界是很丰富的”。

　　小说《喊山》被鲁迅文学奖的评委们认为“是一篇读来令人震惊的充满现实感的作品：一个被拐卖的女人被以极为野蛮的方式剥夺说话的自由达十年之久，整日生活在沉默和恐惧中，最后终获解脱和自由。《喊山》以‘声音’为主题，在民间生活的丰厚质地上展现人心中艰巨的大义和宽阔的悲悯。它在艺术上显示出极为成熟的风格：作者通过诗意的语言、鲜活的细节和耐心的叙述，彰显了一个与尊严和自由相关的主题，给人留下美好的印象。”《甩鞭》则以细致而又充满温情的笔调描写了晋东南人民的原生态生活，真实地再现了太行山地区农民的斗争和日常生活，政治、风俗、人性相纠缠。葛水平善于捕捉民间大地和俗世生活的真实与质朴。在大量保留晋东南地方特色语言的同时，其谴词造句又有女性的温婉，古典而清丽。《裸地》是葛水平的第一部长篇小说，讲述从清末民初到土改这一动荡的历史时期山西省暴店镇的移民史和盖氏家族的兴衰史。小说关注人的生存的艰难，细腻呈现了人在生命之茧中煎熬的沉痛历程和绽放的人性美。

　　在最新的中篇小说《一丈红》中，葛水平用丰饶的语言叙写家乡“山神凹”这块贫瘠的土地与她的子民。小说饱含张力，苦难与温情对立交织，在两代人命运追求的相似与冲突中努力挖掘人性的本真。

　　葛水平

　　Ge Shuiping

　　Ge Shuiping was born in September 1966. She is from Shanshenwa in Qinshui county in Shanxi province. She is Vice Chairman of the Shanxi Province Writer’s Association. Her representative works include the novels Out in the Silence, Naked Land, Keep Watch, Earth Qi, Swing the Whip,and I’m Looking at the Light, and the essay collections I Walk, I am Here, Time Has Passed, and Walking on Both Shores of the River. Her medium length novel Out in the Silence won the 4th annual Lu Xun Literary Prize, the 2005 People’s Literature Award, the Journal of Selected Novels Award, and the second annual Zhao Shuli Literature Award. Swing the Whip won the Journal of Selected Medium Length Novels’ 2006 Oustanding Novel Award. Earlier Than the Wind won the 2007 Shanghai Literature Award. The book length novel Naked Landwon the Jian Menguan Literature Award, the Fifth Annual Chinese Writer Erdos Literature Prize, and the Shanxi Province May Day Medal.Out in the Silence was adapted into a movie. The television shows that she has written scripts for include The Ordinary World and Talented People Concealed on a Tall Mountain Peak.

　　At an early age Ge Shuiping accompanied her grandfather in leaving the mountaintop and shepherding sheep. Her childhood experience of growing up was uneventful and close to nature. In her teenage years she studied drama, and wrote poetry and wrote screenplays. Later on she wrote novels and television scripts. And then later she drew. Abundant life experiences and artistic perception have made her writing possess characteristics of coarseness and gracefulness, and yet is always able to maintain an impression of modesty. Famous critic Lei Da believes that Ge Shuiping’s writing, like Zhao Shuli’s, is deeply immersed in folk spirit and folk ethics. “The boldness of vision of her medium length novels is rather grand, alternating kindness with severity. Under her pen the world of Taihang Mountain is quite rich.”

　　The judges of the Lu Xun Literary Prize believe the novel Out in the Silence “is a work brimming with a sense of realism that is shocking when read: a woman who is adbucted and trafficked loses her freedom to speak for upwards of ten years in a most barbaric fashion. All day her life is spent in silence and fear. In the end she is finally liberated and free. Out in the Silence has ‘sound’ as its theme. On top of the rich texture of folk life it displays the formidable righteous causes and broad compassion in people’s hearts. Artistically it reveals a supremely mature style: the author manifests a theme that is related to dignity and liberty via poetic language, vivid details, and patient narration, and leaves people with a wonderful impression.”Swing the Whip, on the contrary, depicts the original lives of the people of southeastern Shanxi with a detailed style of writing brimming with tenderness, truly reproducing the conflicts and daily lives, politics, customs, and the entanglements of human nature of the rural residents of the Taihang Mountain region. Ge Shuiping is adept at capturing the the reality and unadorned nature of folk lands and mundane lives. While at the same time preserving a large amount of the local characteristic language of southeastern Shanxi, its wording and phrasing also possesses feminine gentleness that is classical and elegant. Naked Land is Ge Shuiping’s first book length novel . It tells the immigration history and history of the rise and fall of the Gai family during the tumultuous historical era from the late Qing Dynasty/early Republic of China Era to the Agrarian Reform. The novel pays close attention to people’s survival and hardships, and meticulously presents the tormented, mournful history and the blossoming beauty of human nature of people in the cocoon of life.

　　In her newest medium length novel Hollyhock Ge Shuiping uses fertile language to recount the story of the barren land of “Shanshenwa”, her hometown, and its people. The novel is imbued with the opposing and interweaving of tension, tribulation, and tenderness. It works hard to excavate the real face of human nature in the similarities and conflicts of the pursuits of fate of two generations of people.