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China's Mo Yan wins Nobel Prize in literature
Chinese author Mo Yan wins the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize
Chinese writer Mo Yan at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009 Photo: AFP
12:23PM BST 11 Oct 2012
Chinese author Mo Yan today won the Nobel Literature Prize for writing that mixes folk tales, history and the contemporary, the Swedish Academy announced.
"Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition," the Swedish Academy said.
Yan was born in 1955, "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary," the jury said.
Mo Yan has published novels, short stories and essays on various topics, and despite his social criticism is seen in his homeland as one of the foremost contemporary authors, the Nobel committee noted.
The 57-year-old, whose real name is Guan Moye, is perhaps best-known abroad for his 1987 novella "Red Sorghum", a tale of the brutal violence that plagued the eastern China countryside - where he grew up - during the 1920s and 30s.
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The story was later made into an acclaimed film by leading Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
In a style that has been compared to the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mo Yan authored other acclaimed works including "Big Breasts and Wide Hips", "Republic of Wine" and "Life and Death are Wearing Me Out".
His latest novel, 2009's "Frog", is considered his most daring yet, due to its searing depiction of China's "one child" population control policy and the local officials who ruthlessly implement it with forced abortions and sterilisations.
The heroine of the novel is a midwife who is an enthusiastic advocate of such practices.
But she later breaks down in remorse after a drunken hallucination in which she is attacked by thousands of frogs whose croaks are the wails of the babies she has aborted.
Despite such content, Mo Yan has so far deftly managed to avoid running into serious trouble with Communist authorities.
This has been aided by his position as vice chairman of the state-sanctioned Chinese Writers Association.
Though Mo is the first Chinese national to win the Nobel literature prize, he's not the first Chinese.
A Chinese emigre to France, Gao Xingjian, won in 2000 for his absurdist dramas and inventive fiction, especially the novel Soul Mountain. His works are laced with criticisms of China's communist government and have been banned in China.
Yan as quoted saying by the official China News Service as saying today: "On hearing the news that I won the award, I was very happy. I will focus on creating new works. I will strive harder to thank everyone."
Last year, the literature prize went to Swedish poet Tomas Transtroemer.
The literature prize is the fourth and one of the most watched announcements this Nobel season, following the prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry earlier this week.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced tomorrow, wrapping up the Nobel season.
As tradition dictates, the laureates will receive their prizes at formal ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize creator Alfred Nobel in 1896.
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