Who is Mo Yan?

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:54:00 +0000

Before today, most Americans had never heard of Guan Moye, a 57-year-old Chinese national who writes under the pseudonym Mo Yan (which means "do not speak"). But according to Time magazine, he is "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers." Today, Mo was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for literature for writing novels "with hallucinatory realism" that "merges folk tales, history and the contemporary." He became the first Chinese national to receive a Nobel Prize for literature:

John Updike's 2005 description of two Chinese writers, including Mo Yan, gives some (now prophetic) insight into why most of us have never head of Mo before:

Nobel Prize for literature: This year’s favorites

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Who will win the Nobel Prize for literature? According to British gambling outfit Ladbrokes, the odds favor Haruki Murakami, the Japanese author of "1Q84," "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and "Norwegian Wood." Other top picks include the Hungarian essayist Peter Nadas ("The End of a Family Story," "A Book of Memories") and Irish playwright and novelist William Trevor ("Autumn Sunshine," "The Story of Lucy Gault"), who have each garnered international attention and boast a long list of literary awards. (Odds listed below, via Ladbrokes):

Salon.com > swedish academy

Who is Mo Yan?

Nobel Prize for literature: This year’s favorites