The 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded yesterday to Chinese writer Mo Yan for his "hallucinatory realism with which he combines folktales, history and the contemporary". Today, Mo Yan was in the news again for urging the Chinese government to release compatriot and dissident Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
According to a BBC survey, the average Nobel Prize winner in Literature is European, male, over 45, married and bearded. The 2012 Nobel Prize winner in Literature meets three of the five criteria, but is not European and does not wear a beard. It concerns the Chinese writer Mo Yan (57), who is best known for his book The red cornfield.
The Nobel Committee chose Mo Yan because of the 'hallucinatory realism with which he combines folktales, history and the contemporary'. The name Mo Yan is a pseudonym and means 'do not speak'. That pseudonym should be understood with a wink:the writer is mainly known for his exuberant writing style. The correct pronunciation of his name is discussed in detail on Language Log, a blog by a group of American linguists. By the way, the actual name of the writer is Guan Moye.
Mo Yan was born in 1955 in Gaomi in Shandong (Northeast China). His parents were farmers. During the Cultural Revolution, he had to break off his schooling to work first as a farmer, later as a factory worker. In 1976 he joined the People's Liberation Army and went on to study literature. His first story was published in a literary magazine in 1981; his breakthrough came in 1986 with the novella Tou Le radis de cristal (French translation; not translated into Dutch). He then wrote ten novels and more than eighty stories. With his first novel The red cornfield he broke through internationally. This novel was also made into a film in 1987.
History as a recurring theme
Mo Yan gained international fame with his book The red cornfield. That book describes a family history in the writer's native region:Shandong, the coastal province that is known for its corn, which forms the basis for corn wine. The red cornfield Set during the Second Sino-Japanese War, in which many Chinese villages were destroyed and countless civilians were murdered by the Japanese army. In his other books he also writes about the civil war between the communists and nationalists, which was won by the communists in 1949. In his novel Big breasts, wide hips this led to a temporary publishing ban because the communists were not portrayed heroically enough.
Mo Yan is compared by admirers to Charles Dickens, among other things, because of his bulky books with a strong moral. Mo himself claims to have been influenced by the writers William Faulkner and Garcia Marquez. Like their books, Mo's stories are often set in small towns, and written in a magical realist style. Mo is arguably the most famous Chinese writer in the West, thanks to the good translators of his work in many European countries (his works have mainly been translated into English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish). This is special, because the Chinese government puts little money into promoting and translating its own literature abroad. For this reason, Chinese writers mainly rely on foreign financiers to translate their work.
Other Chinese Nobel Prize winners
Incidentally, it is not the first time that the Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to China:in 2000 it was awarded to Gao Xingjian. In 2010, Liu Xiaobo became Nobel Peace Prize winner for his "long and peaceful struggle for fundamental human rights in China." At the end of 2008 he and others wrote an open letter to the government:Charter 08 is a manifesto calling for a new constitution with the protection of human rights. Shortly after the appearance, a number of signatories were arrested, including Liu Xiaobo. It is the first time that Mo Yan has spoken publicly about his compatriot. As a member of the Communist Party, he seemed to be mostly on the side of the government until now.
- Nobel Prizes 2012