Mo Yan Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Posted by david on Oct 12, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments

Long awaited.  Back in early 2000s, Oi Kenzaburo, one of Japan’s literary greats and a Laureate of the 1994 Nobel Prize, said it was just a matter of time for Mo Yan to get it.  Mo Yan’s (pename meaning ‘do not speak’) main claim to fame is Red Sorghum that was later made into Zhang Yimou’s classic movie and Big Breasts and Wide Hips, a bizarre story about a young farmer’s fetish for breast milk among other things.

Mo Yan, whose real name is Guan Moye, is not a dissident, unlike Gao Xingjian who won the 2000 prize for his hatred of the government.  It also may be Nobel’s attempt at reconciliation after awarding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to former nobody Liu Xiaobo.  Recall Western pundits saying a non-critic of the Chinese government could never receive the Nobel Prize for either literature or peace.  Others pontificated that no great literary work can emerge under an authoritarian government.

———————-

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/2012-10/12/content_15812079.htm—-