Friday, December 07, 2012

Mo Yan walks delicate line on his way to collect Nobel literature prize

The Nobel literature prize winner is likely to avoid tricky subjects in his Stockholm speech

Thursday, 06 December, 2012

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Until the award, Mo Yan had won critical praise but little mainstream fame for his works, which blend harshly realistic accounts of life in China's countryside with fantastical and sometimes grotesque satire.
But the announcement prompted Chinese readers to snap up his books. He earned royalties of 21.5 million yuan (HK$26.5 million) this year, the second-highest of any Chinese writer, according to a survey.
Gaomi, his hometown, announced 670 million yuan in projects to honour him, including a "Mo Yan Culture Experience Zone" and the planting of swathes of red sorghum, in honour of his best-known work, a novella named after the plant.
State-run media were effusive, hailing him as China's first Nobel literature prize winner, even though the Chinese-born Gao Xingjian, whose works were banned on the mainland and who later took French nationality, won the 2000 literature award.

More at South China Morning Post

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