Also highlighted at the ceremony were a group of pupils from a rural elementary school in Huitong county, Hunan province, and their Chinese language teacher Li Bolin, who initiated a poetry course.

Under Li's guidance, these emerging writers have created more than 1,000 poems.

Liu Yingying wrote: "On hearing people praise it, the cotton grins, opens its mouth and spits out white, soft clouds."

In her poem Blague, Long Chunru wrote: "The mosquito says, I'm so popular that once I fly out of the house, everyone applauds me."

Tie Ning, chairwoman of the China Writers Association, said during a symposium attended by award-winning authors: "When writers join hands with the Party and the people for the bright future of our nation, they will naturally be moved by the hustle and bustle of life and the lovely and respectable people.

"Their words are infused with the juice of life and carry the weight of the era."

It was announced at the gala that an award ceremony like this will be held for the Mao Dun Literature Prize, a prestigious literary award for fulllength novels that's given every four years, in Tongxiang, East China's Zhejiang province, next year.