STOCKHOLM: Mo Yan, one of China’s leading writers of the past half-century, yesterday won the Nobel Literature Prize for his writing that mixes folk tales, history and the contemporary, the Swedish Academy announced.
Mo Yan, 57, became the first Chinese national to win the prize, and the initial official reaction indicated it would be held up as a victory for China, in sharp contrast to Beijing’s angry response to the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Chinese-born writer, political dissident and exile Gao Xingian, who received French citizenship in 1997, won the Nobel Literature Prize in 2000 but it was ignored by the Chinese press at the time.
Mo Yan’s works explore the brutality and darkness of 20th-century Chinese society with a cynical wit.
He 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.
The story was later made into an acclaimed film by leading Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
AFP
