The award ceremony of Zhu Ziqing Literature Prize is staged in Linhai, a county-level city in Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province on April 10. [Photo/taizhou.com.cn]

The award ceremony of Zhu Ziqing Literature Prize was held in Linhai, a county-level city in Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province on April 10.

With a panel of renowned writers, critics, literature editors and college professors acting as the jury, the biennial event confers awards to outstanding novels, proses and poems.

According to the organizing committee, the inaugural edition this year received nearly 4,000 entries from around the world.

The Stories of Gengzi written by Yi Zhou won the award for fiction, while the ones for proses and poems went to The Middle Aged by Yang Xianping and Mother by Shu Jie respectively.

In addition, the award for young literature lovers was shared by 10 students around the country.

Zhu Ziqing is famous essayist, poet and educator in China. His other widely acclaimed essays includeThe Back Sight of My Father and Moonlight over the Lotus Pond.

In 1922, Zhu taught at a school in Linhai, which is now known as the Taizhou Junior High School, at the invitation of the then principal Zheng Hechun. During his stay in the city, the writer created one of his most famous proses, Cong Cong, which was published on April 11 that same year.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Zhu's stay in Linhai, the local government announced the establishment of a literature prize named after the writer in April 2022.