Wikipedia

Mo Yan

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisGuan.

Guan Moye(simplified Chinese:Quản mô nghiệp;traditional Chinese:Quản mô nghiệp;pinyin:Guǎn Móyè;born 5 March 1955[1]), better known by the pen nameMo Yan(/moʊjɛn/,Chinese:Không nói;pinyin:Mò Yán), is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. Donald Morrison of U.S. news magazineTIMEreferred to him as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widelypiratedof allChinese writers",[2]andJim Leachcalled him the Chinese answer toFranz KafkaorJoseph Heller.[3]He is best known to Western readers for his 1986 novelRed Sorghum,the first two parts of which were adapted into theGolden Bear-winning filmRed Sorghum(1988).[4]

Mo Yan
Mo Yan in 2008
Mo Yan in 2008
Native name
Không nói
BornGuan Moye ( quản mô nghiệp )
(1955-02-17)17 February 1955(age 69)
Gaomi,Shandong, China
Pen nameMo Yan
OccupationWriter, teacher
LanguageChinese
NationalityChinese
EducationBeijing Normal University
People's Liberation Army Arts College
PeriodContemporary
Literary movementMagical realism
Years active1981–present
Notable worksRed Sorghum Clan,
The Republic of Wine,
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
Notable awardsNobel Prize in Literature
2012
Spouse
Du Qinlan ( đỗ cần lan )
​
(m.1979)​
ChildrenGuan Xiaoxiao ( quản cười cười ) (Born in 1981)

Mo won the 2005International Nonino Prizein Italy. In 2009, he was the first recipient of the University of Oklahoma'sNewman Prize for Chinese Literature.[5]In 2012, Mo was awarded theNobel Prize in Literaturefor his work as a writer "who withhallucinatory realismmerges folk tales, history and the contemporary ".[6][7]

Early life

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Mo Yan was born in February 1955 into a peasant family in Ping'an Village, Gaomi Township, northeast ofShandong Province,the People's Republic of China. He is the youngest of four children with two older brothers and an older sister.[8]His family was of an upper-middle peasant class background.[9]Mo was 11 years old when theCultural Revolutionwas launched, at which time he left school to work as a farmer. In the autumn of 1973, he began work at the cotton oil processing factory. During this period, which coincided with a succession of political campaigns from theGreat Leap Forwardto theCultural Revolution,his access to literature was largely limited to novels in thesocialist realiststyle under Mao Zedong, which centred largely on the themes of class struggle and conflict.[10]

At the close of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Mo enlisted in thePeople's Liberation Army(PLA),[11]and began writing while he was still a soldier. During this post-Revolution era when he emerged as a writer, both the lyrical and epic works of Chinese literature, as well as translations of foreign authors such asWilliam FaulknerandGabriel García Márquez,would make an impact on his works.[12]

In 1984, he received a literary award from thePLA Magazine,and the same year began attending thePeople's Liberation Army Arts College,where he first adopted the pen name of Mo Yan.[13]He published his first novella,A Transparent Radish,in 1984, and releasedRed Sorghumin 1986, launching his career as a nationally recognized novelist.[13]In 1991, he graduated from the joint master's program in literature by theLu XunSchool of Literature andBeijing Normal University.[11]

Pen name

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"Mo Yan" – "don't speak" in Chinese – is his pen name.[14]Mo Yan has explained on occasion that the name comes from a warning from his father and mother not to speak his mind while outside, because of China's revolutionary political situation from the 1950s, when he grew up.[3]It also relates to the subject matter of Mo Yan's writings, which reinterpret Chinese political and sexual history.[15]

In an interview with Professor David Wang, Mo Yan stated that he changed his "official name" to Mo Yan because he could not receive royalties under the pen name.[16]

Works

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Mo Yan began his career as a writer in thereform and opening upperiod, publishing dozens of short stories and novels in Chinese. His first published short story was "Falling Rain on a Spring Night", published in September 1981.[17]

In 1986, the five parts that formed his first novel,Red Sorghum(1987), were published serially. It is a non-chronological novel about the generations of a Shandong family between 1923 and 1976. The author deals with upheavals in Chinese history such as the Second Sino-Japanese War, the 1949Communist Revolution,and theCultural Revolution,but in an unconventional way; for example from the point of view of the invading Japanese soldiers.[18]

His second novel,The Garlic Ballads,is based on a true story of when the farmers of Gaomi Township rioted against a government that would not buy its crops.The Republic of Wineis a satire around gastronomy and alcohol, which usescannibalismas a metaphor for Chinese self-destruction, following Lu Xun.[18]Big Breasts & Wide Hipsdeals with female bodies, from a grandmother whose breasts are shattered by Japanese bullets, to a festival where one of the child characters, Shangguan Jintong, blesses each woman of his town by stroking her breasts.[19]The book was controversial in China because someleftist criticsobjected toBig Breasts'perceived negative portrayal of Communist soldiers.[19]

Extremely prolific, Mo Yan wroteLife and Death Are Wearing Me Outin only 42 days.[3]He composed the more than 500,000 characters contained in the original manuscript on traditional Chinese paper using only ink and a writing brush. He prefers writing his novels by hand rather than by typing using apinyininput method,because the latter method "limits your vocabulary".[3]Life and Death Are Wearing Me Outis a meta-fiction about the story of a landlord who is reincarnated in the form of various animals during the Chineseland reformmovement.[13]The landlord observes and satirizes Communist society, such as when he (as a donkey) forces two mules to share food with him, because "[in] the age of communism... mine is yours and yours is mine."[15]

Pow!,Mo Yan's first work to be translated into English after receiving the Nobel Prize, is about a young storytelling boy named Luo who was famous in his village for eating so much meat.[20]His village is so carnivorous it is an obsession that leads to corruption.[21]Pow!cemented his writing style as “hallucinatory realism”.[22]Another one of his works,Frog,Yan's latest novel published, focuses on the cause and consequences of China'sOne-Child Policy.Set in a small rural Chinese town called Gaomi, the narrator Tadpole tells the story of his aunt Gugu, who once was a hero for delivering life into the world as a midwife, and now takes away life as an abortion provider.[23]Steven Moorefrom the Washington Post wrote, “another display of Mo Yan’s attractively daring approach to fiction. The Nobel committee chose wisely.”[24]

Style

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Mo Yan's works areepichistorical novels characterized byhallucinatory realismand containing elements ofblack humour.[15]His language is distinguished by his imaginative use of colour expressions.[5]A major theme in Mo Yan's works is the constancy of human greed and corruption, despite the influence of ideology.[18]Using dazzling, complex, and often graphically violent images, he sets many of his stories near his hometown, Northeast Gaomi Township in Shandong province.

Mo Yan's works are also predominantly social commentary, and he is strongly influenced by thesocial realismofLu Xunand themagical realismofGabriel García Márquez.Mo Yan says he realised that he could make "[my] family, [the] people I'm familiar with, the villagers" his characters after readingWilliam Faulkner'sThe Sound and the Fury.[3]He satirizes the genre ofsocialist realismby placing workers and bureaucrats into absurd situations.[15]In terms of traditional Chinese literature, he is deeply inspired by the folklore-based classical epic novelWater Margin.[25]He citesJourney to the WestandDream of the Red Chamberas formative influences.[3]Mo Yan's writing style has also been influenced by theSix Dynasties,Chuanqi,notebook novels of theMingandQingDynasties and especially byfolk oral literature.His creation combines all of these inspirations into one of the most distinctive voices inworld literature.[26]

Mo Yan's ability to convey traditionalist values inside of his mythical realism writing style inThe Old Gunhas allowed insight and view into the swift modernization of China. This short story by Mo Yan was an exemplary example of the "Xungen movement"Chinese literary movement and influenced many to turn back to traditional values. This movement portrayed the fear of loss of cultural identity due to the swift modernization of China in the 1980s.[27]Mo Yan reads foreign authors in translation and strongly advocates the reading of world literature.[28]At a speech to open the 2009Frankfurt Book Fair,he discussedGoethe's idea of "world literature", stating that "literature can overcome the barriers that separate countries and nations".[29]

Mo Yan's writing is characterised by the blurring of distinctions between "past and present, dead and living, as well as good and bad".[19]Mo Yan appears in his novels as a semi-autobiographical character who retells and modifies the author's other stories.[13]His female characters often fail to observe traditionalgender roles,such as the mother of the Shangguan family inBig Breasts & Wide Hips,who, failing to bear her husband any sons, instead is an adulterer, becoming pregnant with girls by a Swedish missionary and a Japanese soldier, among others. Male power is also portrayed cynically inBig Breasts & Wide Hips,and there is only one male hero in the novel.[19]

Mo Yan's masterpieces have been translated into English by translatorHoward Goldblatt.Goldblatt has effectively transmittedChinese cultureto target audiences by using adomestication technique augmented with foreignization.[5]

Controversy

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Mo Yan was among a group of 100 artists who celebrated the 75th Anniversary of theYan'an Talksin 2012 by hand copying the text of the talks.[30]: 58 Upon his receipt of the Nobel Prize later that year, some Chinese writers and artists[who?]criticized him for being subservient to the Chinese government.[31]Mo stated that he had no regrets for participating in the Yan'an Talks celebration.[30]: 58 

Mo was also criticised by the authorSalman Rushdiein 2012 after the announcement of theNobelwin, who called him a "patsy of the regime", after he refused to sign a petition calling for the freedom ofLiu Xiaobo,[32]a dissident involved in campaigns to end one party rule in China and the first Chinese citizen to be awarded theNobel Peace Prizein 2010.[33]

Mo had later suggested in a press conference inStockholm, Sweden,that he would not join the appeal calling for the release ofLiu Xiaobofrom jail, although he hoped that Liu would be set free soon and had defended censorship as something equivalent to airport security checks.[34]

List of works

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Mo Yan has written 11 novels, and several novellas and short story collections.

This is a complete list of Mo Yan's works published as a collection in 2012 in China (after Mo Yan received the Nobel Prize).

Novels

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Short story and novella collections

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  • 《 bạch cẩu bàn đu dây giá 》White Dog and the Swing(30 short stories, 1981–1989)
  • 《 cùng đại sư hẹn hò 》Meeting the Masters(45 short stories, 1990–2005)
  • 《 sung sướng 》Joy(8 novellas; six of them are published in English asExplosions and Other Stories)
  • 《 ôm ấp hoa tươi nữ nhân 》The Woman with Flowers(8 novellas, 2012[35])
  • 《 sư phó càng ngày càng hài hước 》Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh(9 novellas, 2001; one of them,Change,is published independently in English)
  • 《 trưởng thành muộn người 》A Late Bloomer(12 novellas and short stories, 2020[36])

Other works

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  • 《 sẽ ca hát tường 》The Wall Can Sing(60 essays, 1981–2011)
  • 《 chúng ta Kinh Kha 》Our Jing Ke(play)
  • 《 toái ngữ văn học 》Broken Philosophy(interviews, only available in Chinese)
  • 《 dùng lỗ tai đọc 》Ears to Read(speeches, only available in Chinese)
  • 《 buổi lễ long trọng: Giải Nobel hành trình 》Grand Ceremony

Awards and honours

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Honorary doctorate

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Adaptations

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Several of Mo Yan's works have been adapted for film:

See also

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References

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  1. ^"Mo Yan".Britannica.1 March 2024.Retrieved3 March2024.
  2. ^Morrison, Donald (14 February 2005)."Holding Up Half The Sky".Time.Archived fromthe originalon 11 March 2007.Retrieved14 February2005.
  3. ^abcdefLeach, Jim (January–February 2011)."The Real Mo Yan".Humanities.32(1): 11–13.
  4. ^Inge, M. Thomas (1990)."Mo Yan and William Faulkner: Influences and Confluences".Faulkner Journal.6(1): 15–24.ISSN0884-2949.JSTOR24907667.
  5. ^abcDing, Rongrong; Wang, Lixun (4 May 2017)."Mo Yan's style in using colour expressions and Goldblatt's translation strategies: a corpus-based study".Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies.4(2): 117–131.doi:10.1080/23306343.2017.1331389.ISSN2330-6343.
  6. ^"Mo Yan får Nobelpriset i litteratur 2012".DN.11 October 2012.Retrieved11 October2012.
  7. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 Mo Yan".Nobelprize.org. 11 October 2012.Retrieved11 October2012.
  8. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012".NobelPrize.org.Retrieved31 May2022.
  9. ^Leung, Laifong (2016).Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers: Biography, Bibliography, and Critical Assessment.Taylor & Francis Group. p. 197.
  10. ^Anna Sun."The Diseased Language of Mo Yan",The Kenyon Review, Fall 2012.
  11. ^abWee, Sui-Lee (11 October 2012)."China's Mo Yan feeds off suffering to win Nobel literature prize".Reuters.Retrieved11 October2012.
  12. ^Laughlin, Charles (17 December 2012)."What Mo Yan's Detractors Get Wrong".The New York Times.Retrieved17 December2012.[permanent dead link‍]
  13. ^abcdWilliford, James (January–February 2011)."Mo Yan 101".Humanities.32(1): 10.
  14. ^Ahlander, Johan (11 October 2012)."China's Mo Yan wins Nobel for" hallucinatory realism "".Reuters.Archived fromthe originalon 27 February 2016.Retrieved11 October2012.
  15. ^abcdHuang, Alexander (July–August 2009). "Mo Yan as Humorist".World Literature Today.83(4): 32–35.doi:10.1353/wlt.2009.0315.S2CID161013759.
  16. ^SW12X - ChinaX (18 February 2015)."ChinaX: Introducing Mo Yan".Archivedfrom the original on 22 December 2021.Retrieved7 November2018– via YouTube.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012".NobelPrize.org.Retrieved10 May2022.
  18. ^abcInge, M. Thomas (June 2000). "Mo Yan Through Western Eyes".World Literature Today.74(3): 501–507.doi:10.2307/40155816.JSTOR40155816.
  19. ^abcdChan, Shelley W. (Summer 2000). "From Fatherland to Motherland: On Mo Yan's 'Red Sorghum' and 'Big Breasts and Full Hips'".World Literature Today.74(3): 495–501.doi:10.2307/40155815.JSTOR40155815.
  20. ^"Pow! by Mo Yan – review".the Guardian.18 January 2013.Retrieved7 December2021.
  21. ^Garner, Dwight (1 January 2013)."A Meaty Tale, Carnivorous and Twisted".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved7 December2021.
  22. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012".NobelPrize.org.Retrieved7 December2021.
  23. ^Hogensen, Brooke Ann (1 November 2015)."Mo Yan, Frog: A Novel".Transnational Literature.8(1).ISSN1836-4845.
  24. ^Moore, Steven (23 March 2015)."Book review: 'Frog,' by Mo Yan".Washington Post.Retrieved6 December2021.
  25. ^Howard Yuen Fung Choy,Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng's China, 1979 -1997.Leiden: BRILL, 2008. pp. 51–53.ISBN9004167048.
  26. ^Goldblatt, Howard (1 September 2013)."Mo Yan in Translation: One Voice among Many".Chinese Literature Today.3(1–2): 6–9.doi:10.1080/21514399.2013.11833989.ISSN2151-4399.S2CID64496433.
  27. ^W. W. Norton,The Old Gun, 1985.Mo Yan: The Norton Anthology, 2018. pp. 1101-1110.ISBN9780393602869.
  28. ^"World Literature and China in a Global Age".Chinese Literature Today.1(1): 101–103. July 2010.
  29. ^Yan, Mo; Yao, Benbiao (July 2010). "A Writer Has a Nationality, but Literature Has No Boundary".Chinese Literature Today.1(1): 22–24.doi:10.1080/21514399.2010.11833905.S2CID194781082.
  30. ^abcYi, Guolin (2024). "From" Seven Speak-Nots "to" Media Surnamed Party ": Media in China from 2012 to 2022". In Fang, Qiang; Li, Xiaobing (eds.).China under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment.Leiden University Press.ISBN9789087284411.
  31. ^York, Josh Chin and Paul Mozur in Beijing and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in New."Chinese Writer Wins Literature Nobel".WSJ.Retrieved21 March2024.
  32. ^Daley, David (7 December 2012)."Rushdie: Mo Yan is a" patsy of the regime "".Salon.Retrieved19 September2024.
  33. ^"Liu Xiaobo | Facts, Biography, & Nobel Prize | Britannica".britannica.Retrieved19 September2024.
  34. ^Press, Associated (7 December 2012)."Censorship is a must, says China's Nobel winner".The Guardian.ISSN0261-3077.Retrieved19 September2024.
  35. ^The Woman with Flowers-WorldCat
  36. ^"Mo Yan releases 1st body of new works since Nobel win".China Daily.31 July 2020.Retrieved26 September2020.
  37. ^"I.B.3 –CITY COLLEGE - HONORARY DEGREES TO BE AWARDED AT THE COLLEGE'S ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY ON MAY 31, 2013"(PDF).Retrieved7 November2018.
  38. ^"Phật quang đại học ban thụ không nói vinh dự văn học tiến sĩ học vị".cna.tw.Archived fromthe originalon 8 January 2022.Retrieved8 January2022.
  39. ^"Hanban-News".english.hanban.org.Retrieved7 November2018.
  40. ^Kong, The Open University of Hong."The Open University of Hong Kong: Openlink Vol 23 Issue 4 (Dec 2014)".ouhk.edu.hk.Retrieved7 November2018.
  41. ^"News Express: Nobel laureate Mo Yan speaks on Chinese literature at UM".um2.umac.mo.Retrieved7 November2018.
  42. ^"Honorary Doctorates and Honorary University Fellows - HKBU".hkbu.edu.hk.Retrieved7 November2018.

Further reading

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