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Sometime in the late 1960s or early seventies, a neighbor told Guan Moye about a writer he knew whose work was so popular that he could afford to eat  jiaozi —“those tasty little pork dumplings

—Courtesy Peg Skorpinski

Sometime in the late 1960s or early seventies, a neighbor told Guan Moye about a writer he knew whose work was so popular that he could afford to eat  jiaozi —“those tasty little pork dumplings”—at every meal. For Guan, who was born in 1955 in the rural county of Gaomi, China, and had grown up knowing almost nothing but the devastating privations that followed in the wake of the Great Leap Forward, the story was an inspiration. “That’s all I needed to know,” he later wrote; “become a writer and you can eat meaty  jiaozi  three times a day. Life doesn’t get any better than that. Why, not even the gods could do better. That’s when I made up my mind to become a writer someday.”

“Someday” came a few years later, when Guan was accepted to the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art and Literature. While he was still a student, he began to publish his work under the pen name Mo Yan. His first novella,  A Transparent Radish  (1984), brought him to the attention of Chinese literary circles. His second,  Red Sorghum  (1986), propelled him from modest notoriety to national, and then international, fame.

Set before and during the Second Sino-Japanese War,  Red Sorghum  tells the story of an on-again-off-again couple, refracted through the vivid imagination of their grandson, the book’s unnamed narrator. It begins in 1939 with “Father,” age fifteen, running with “Grandfather” to join a group of Chinese resistance fighters lying in ambush for the invading Japanese. The action proceeds quickly and sequentially for several paragraphs, giving the impression of a straightforward family chronicle, before suddenly collapsing around a strange, dreamlike image of the narrator himself, as a child, playing war, and, in fact, already fantasizing about the events that will occupy the novella:

That was how Father rushed toward the uncarved granite marker that would rise above his grave in the bright-red sorghum fields of his hometown. A bare-assed little boy once led a white billy goat up to the weed-covered grave, and as it grazed in unhurried contentment, the boy pissed furiously on the grave and sang out: “The sorghum is red—the Japanese are coming—compatriots, get ready—fire your rifles and cannons—” Someone said that the little goatherd was me, but I don’t know.

What follows this moment of colliding temporalities is a long series of rhythmic cuts, flashes forward and backward in time, as the narrator conjures fragments from the war and from his grandparents’ budding romance years earlier, gradually building to scenes of staggering violence and bursting sensuality. The effect, says Howard Goldblatt, a scholar of Chinese literature at Notre Dame and Mo Yan’s English translator, is to draw “attention to the way the past is reconstructed,” to question historiography.

Over the last three decades, Mo Yan has consistently pushed his craft into new realms of experimentation. In  Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out  (2006), he charts a massive saga through the intertwined lives of the friends, relatives, and enemies of a landlord named Ximen Nao. The twist? Ximen Nao is murdered at the beginning of the novel, in 1949, a victim of the Land Reform movement, and the subsequent years, 1950 to 2000, are told largely from the various perspectives of his reincarnations as a donkey, an ox, a pig, a monkey, and, finally, a boy with an abnormally large head. The conceit gives rise to any number of fantastic—and allegorical—interludes. In one memorable chapter, for instance, Ximen Nao, reincarnated as Pig Sixteen, starts a fight with another boar over leadership of the Apricot Garden Pig Farm herd:

I jumped out of the way and, with a good eye and quick hoof, snatched up the hat by its brim, and reared back until I was standing up straight. Holding my free hoof up in the air, I spun around and, with the gathered momentum, flung the hat and its apricot contents like a discus thrower. The golden yellow hat curved in a beautiful arc on its way to the moon. Suddenly, the strains of a moving straw hat song filled the air above us:  La-la-la—La-ya la-la-ya-la—Mama’s straw hat is flying la—Mama’s straw hat is flying to the moon—La-ya la-la-ya-la —The sows under the tree were joined in song by hundreds of pigs in the farm; some jumped out of their pens, while those that lacked the ability stood up with their hooves on the walls, and all of them gazed at the moon.

The swine chorus continues to sing for the duration of the fight, and the hat, impossibly, remains aloft, circling the moon, “gracefully, like a satellite.” The combatants’ maneuvers resonate in the cosmic dance of the hat and moon and in the descriptive verses of the folk song, elevating the bestial struggle for social dominance to an epic battle of heroes. There is, of course, an element of humor in the inflated rhetoric of the passage, but it is executed with undeniable lyrical artistry.

Mo Yan often appears in his own fiction, as a semi-autobiographical character; his narrators sometimes quote his other works, only to refute their reliability; characters paradoxically write and rewrite the very text in which they exist. In short, dazzling linguistic games seem to flow almost unstoppably from Mo Yan’s pen. If these games confuse, however, it isn’t for long. If they obscure some detail, it is by design. What is most impressive about Mo Yan’s work—and perhaps one of the reasons his name is so often mentioned as a possible future Nobel laureate—is the near seamlessness with which his stylistic experiments work within his narratives to draw out hidden emotional valences, to articulate discerning social critiques, and even to challenge his readers’ preconceptions of reality.

James Williford is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

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The Two-Way

Chinese author, mo yan, awarded 2012 nobel prize in literature.

Eyder Peralta

Mo Yan, the Chinese author, was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature this morning.

Mo Yan. J. Kolfhaus, Gymn. Marientha hide caption

Mo Yan, the Nobel committee wrote, uses his "hallucinatory realism" to merge "folk tales, history and the contemporary."

"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 García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition," the committee explained in its citation.

The 57-year-old writer is best known for his book Red Sorghum: A Novel Of China . The winner receives $1.2 million.

Update at 7:32 a.m. ET. Navigating The Censors:

Time Magazine has a great piece that looks at Mo Yan's life's work. Most of his literature is inspired by his hometown of Gaomi, Shandong province. And while much of it skirts the censors by taking place in the past, some of it like one of his most recent books, Frog, takes on controversial topics like China's one-child rule.

As Time explains, Mo Yan works his way around the edges of government censorship by using "the adroit subtlety of his magic-realist style."

Time reports:

"For Eric Abrahamsen, a Beijing-based translator of modern Chinese fiction, it is clear that Mo Yan engages in the complex calculus of what is and isn't permissible that faces every Chinese writer. There is nothing wrong with that: not every artist has the stomach for strident dissent and, having been banned in the past, Mo Yan has nothing to prove. But these days, says Abrahamsen, Mo Yan "knows exactly where the lines are and doesn't cross them." Discussion about the drawbacks of the one-child policy, and whether it should be rolled back, is now permissible in China, for example. "I think the reason the book got published now is because it's not controversial anymore," says Abrahamsen."

Update at 7:47 a.m. ET. Biography:

According to the biography published on the Nobel website , Mo Yan, who's real name is Guan Moye, was born in 1955.

It goes on to say:

"As a twelve-year-old during the Cultural Revolution he left school to work, first in agriculture, later in a factory. In 1976 he joined the People's Liberation Army and during this time began to study literature and write. His first short story was published in a literary journal in 1981. His breakthrough came a few years later with the novella Touming de hong luobo (1986, published in French as Le radis de cristal 1993)."

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MO Yan／ Grand Prize 2006

Grand Prize 2006 [17th]

--> Writer Born Fabruary 17, 1955 （aged51）

Mr. Mo Yan is one of the leading figures in contemporary Chinese literature. His works depict the reality of life in China’s cities and farming villages with a unique blend of realism and fantasy, blazing a trail into the future for Asian literature. He is the standard bearer not only for Chinese literature today, but also the literature of Asia and the world.

The details of title, age, career and award citation are at the time of announcement of the Prize.

Award Citation

Mr. Mo Yan is one of the leading figures in contemporary Chinese literature. His works depict the reality of life in China's cities and farming villages with a unique blend of realism and fantasy, and have been translated into many languages, blazing a trail into the future for Asian literature. He is the standard bearer not only for Chinese literature today, but also the literature of Asia and the world. Mr. Mo Yan was born in 1955 to a family of farmers in Gaomi, Shandong Province, China. He left primary school due to the Cultural Revolution. After working as a cow herder, farmhand, and a temporary laborer in factories, Mr. Mo Yan joined the People's Liberation Army. He began his writing career in the 1980s. The themes that he has continuously depicted were discovered within himself. They focus on China's poverty-stricken farming villages and the people who live there. The author continues to create a unique literary world by blending narrative expression from the traditional Chinese literary arts with the avant-garde methods derived from modern Western literature. Mr. Mo Yan published Hong Gaoliang Jiazu (Red Sorghum: A Novel of China) in 1987. Set in an agricultural village during the war against Japan, the novel was turned into a movie by director Zhang Yimou that won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival. This literary work, firmly rooted in the vast spaces of China, garnered international attention. His work continued with the publication of Jiuguo(The Republic of Wine) and other novels. He was catapulted into the vanguard of contemporary Chinese literature, while gaining international recognition as a novelist after many of his works were translated into English, Korean, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, and other languages. The author insists that his work is not an imitation of Western novels, but the creation of novels that incorporate the reality of today's China. He declared, "It is meaningless to follow others. If everyone heads West, then I will head East." He is not merely guiding Chinese literature, but demonstrating the spirit to drive into the future the literature of Asia that has been bound by the stifling influence of modern Western literature and the weight of history and tradition. His works represent the successful creation of a literary universe by alternating scenes of his hometown of Gaomi, a remote agricultural area, with the literary space of fantasy. Though they depict people and a place deeply rooted in the soil and culture of China, readers throughout the world can readily identify with them. This makes Mr. Mo Yan's novels international literature in the true sense of the world. A son of the vastness of China, Mr. Mo Yan has used literature to employ the richness and diversity of culture and the complexity and potential of human society. He has opened a path from Asia to the world, in the process demonstrating the significance of Asian culture to the world. He is indeed worthy of the Grand Prize of the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes.

Biography of MO Yan (PDF)（PDF, 496.7KB）

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Introducing Mo Yan

Our library currently holds six major works by Mo Yan, plus the film, Red Sorghum . A complete collection of Mo Yan’s works in Chinese and other English translations are on order and will be available shortly. For commentaries and criticism of his works, you can check the library databases for literary studies . For literary criticism in Chinese, you can search China Academic Journals Full Text Database , or Duxiu . Enjoy!

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Home » China » Mo Yan

Mo Yan was born Guan Moye to a peasant family in Gaomi in Shandong Province in 1955. His education ended in 1966 when the Cultural Revolution broke out when he worked as a peasant. He subsequently worked in a factory before joining the army, where he became a member of the cultural department. His main inspiration still remains the Gaomi area though he combines both the urban and the rural and the historical and the present. His pen name means don’t speak . He won The Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012.

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Mo Yan ( 莫言 ) is a famous contemporary Chinese writer. In 2012, He became the country's first Nobel Literature Prize laureate.

He took the second place in the 2012 Chinese Writers Rich List that was released on Nov. 29, 2012, having earned 21.5 million yuan ($3.45 million) in royalties. It is the first time Mo has made the annual list since 2006, when he was ranked 20th.

Born Guan Moye (管谟业), the author writes under the pen name Mo Yan, which means "don't speak" in Chinese.

Mo Yan was granted an honorary PhD of Arts by OUHK (Open University of Hong Kong) and was appointed guest professor at the Qingdao University of Technology. Relying on a series of country literary works, Mo's claim to fame came in the 1980s when he established a reputation for being a so-called root-seeking writer. His works were strongly influenced by magical realism and told the tales of numerous legends which took place in Gaomi, Shandong Province. Mo is renowned for his unique perceptions of reality, imaginative descriptions, de-familiarization processing, mysticism and a pioneering style.

Mo Yan was born on February 17, 1955 in Gaomi, Shandong Province . He attended primary school in his hometown and actually was forced to drop out because of China's Cultural Revolution. He was sent to the countryside where he had to perform manual labor for many years.

In 1976, Mo joined the PLA (China's People's Liberation Army) and held the posts of monitor, librarian, teacher and secretary.

In 1981, he started his writing career and published several early works such as "Dry River,""Autumn Stream"and "Folk Music."

In 1986, he graduated from the department of literature at the PLA Academy of Arts. 　

In 1991, he was granted a master's degree in literature and art from the Lu Xun Literature Institute at Beijing Normal University.

In 1997, his full-length novel "Big Breasts and Wide Hips"won the Da Jia Literature Prize, a money prize of 100,000 Yuan. Mo then left the army and started to work for regional newspaper Procuratorial Daily. He also wrote TV scripts for the department of film and television.

In 2000, his novel "Family Stories of Red Sorghum"was on the list of the 100 best Chinese fictional works of the 20th century, as selected by Asia Week. The movie "Red Sorghum,"directed by Zhang Yimou (张艺谋), was adapted from this novel and won the 38th Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear Award.

In 2001, "Sandalwood Penalty" was awarded with the prize of the "Best Literary Book for Readers," granted by Taiwan United Daily News. This novel also won the Ding Jun Double Year Prize for Literature in 2003.

Though missing out on the 2005 Mao Dun Literature Prize, Mo did win the second Mass Media Award for Chinese Literature for Outstanding Achievements for his novel "Forty-one Cannons."The Open University of Hong Kong later granted him an honorary PhD of Arts.

His first chapter book "Fatigue of Life and Death"got him the Fukuoka Asian Culture Award in 2006. According to the list of wealthiest Chinese writers published on December 15, 2006, Mo ranked twentieth, with his royalties amounting to 3.45 million Yuan. These facts and figures attracted wide public attention.

In July 2007, his collection of essays "Say It, Mo Yan", a representation of his spiritual journey, was published.

In 2008, "Fatigue of Life and Death"won first prize at the second Dream of the Red Chamber Awards.

In December 2009, Mo's full-length novel "The Frog" was published. The book features Mo's characteristically unique writing skills, containing four long letters and one drama. "The Frog" tells the story of a female country doctor who has been practicing gynecology for nearly 50 years. Set to the backdrop of the rural birth condition from the eyes of the obstetrician in six decades since the country's liberation, it represented the arduous and complicated course of controlling the Chinese population growth, creating an inspirational female protagonist and at the same time revealing the pain and difficulties of that age. On August 20, 2011, "the Frog"won the eighth Mao Dun Literature Prize.

Mo was appointed guest professor at the Qingdao University of Technology and was also selected to act as vice- chairman of the Chinese Writers' Association on November 2011.

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2012 was awarded to Mo Yan, "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary," the Swedish Academy announced in Stockholm on Oct. 11, 2012.

The Language and Cultural Press under Ministry of Education decided to add one of Mo's novella "A transparent carrot" in high school textbooks a couple of days after the annoucement for Mo's winning as the literary laureate.

He became the first director of the International Writing Center established by Beijing Normal University on May 13, 2013.

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Confucius Temple in Beijing to Reverse Course on Mo Yan Inscription

After a wave of criticism online, administrators said they would replace a plaque bearing an inscription by the 2012 Nobel laureate in Literature.

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Mo Yan (literally “don’t speak”) is the pen name of Guan Moye. Born in 1955 to a peasant family in Shandong province, he is the author of 10 novels, including FROG and RED SORGHUM, which was made into a feature film, dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. Mo Yan is the winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature and the 2009 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. He has won virtually every Chinese literary prize, including the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2011 (China’s most prestigious literary award) and is the most critically acclaimed Chinese writer of his generation, in both China and around the world. He lives in Beijing.

Books by Mo Yan

1955 - Today

Guan Moye (simplified Chinese: 管谟业; traditional Chinese: 管謨業; pinyin: Guǎn Móyè; born 5 March 1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan (, Chinese: 莫言; pinyin: Mò Yán), is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. Donald Morrison of U.S. news magazine TIME referred to him as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers", and Jim Leach called him the Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller. In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".He is best known to Western readers for his 1986 novel Red Sorghum, the first two parts of which were adapted as the Golden Bear-winning film Red Sorghum (1988) . Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Mo Yan has received more than 801,407 page views. His biography is available in 92 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 86 in 2019) . Mo Yan is the 566th most popular writer (up from 567th in 2019) , the 149th most popular biography from China (down from 131st in 2019) and the 9th most popular Chinese Writer .

Mo Yan is most famous for his novel Red Sorghum, which was the first Chinese novel to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Notable Works

Page views of mo yans by language, among writers.

Among writers , Mo Yan ranks 566 out of 5,755 .  Before him are Percy Fawcett , Saint Naum , Jacob L. Moreno , Alain Robbe-Grillet , Theocritus , and Sándor Petőfi . After him are Lion Feuchtwanger , Dietrich Eckart , Eyvind Johnson , Isaac Babel , Dino Buzzati , and Juan Ramón Jiménez .

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Jacob L. Moreno

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Alain Robbe-Grillet

1922 - 2008

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Sándor Petőfi

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1955 - Present

Lion Feuchtwanger

1884 - 1958

Dietrich Eckart

1868 - 1923

Eyvind Johnson

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1955 , Mo Yan ranks 20 .  Before him are Sergey Shoygu , Ornella Muti , Isabelle Adjani , Angus Young , Li Keqiang , and Ludovico Einaudi . After him are Nina Hagen , Donatella Versace , Guillermo Lasso , Akira Toriyama , Chow Yun-fat , and Liu Xiaobo .

Others Born in 1955

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1955 - 2023

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Chow Yun-fat

1955 - 2017

Among people born in China , Mo Yan ranks 149 out of 1,392 .  Before him are Li Keqiang (1955) , Luo Guanzhong (1330) , Zhang Yimou (1950) , Zhengde Emperor (1491) , Wang Wei (699) , and Faxian (340) . After him are Hyeonjong of Joseon (1641) , Wen Jiabao (1942) , Pang Tong (179) , Emperor Taizong of Song (939) , Emperor Shenzong of Song (1048) , and 1st Dalai Lama (1391) .

Others born in China

Luo Guanzhong

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Zhang Yimou

1950 - Present

Zhengde Emperor

1491 - 1521

Hyeonjong of Joseon

1641 - 1674

1942 - Present

Emperor Taizong of Song

Emperor Shenzong of Song

1048 - 1085

1st Dalai Lama

1391 - 1474

Among WRITERS In China

Among writers born in China , Mo Yan ranks 9 .  Before him are Gao Xingjian (1940) , Qu Yuan (-343) , Wu Cheng'en (1500) , Luo Guanzhong (1330) , Wang Wei (699) , and Faxian (340) . After him are Bai Juyi (772) , Kumārajīva (343) , Jin Yong (1924) , Kang Youwei (1858) , Su Shi (1037) , and Zhang Sanfeng (1200) .

Chinese born Writers

Gao Xingjian

1940 - Present

343 BC - 278 BC

Wu Cheng'en

1500 - 1582

1924 - 2018

Kang Youwei

1858 - 1927

1037 - 1101

Zhang Sanfeng

1200 - 1301

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Nine years after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, Mo Yan, 66, shows no sign of letting up in his pursuit of crafting great stories, remaining a passionate storyteller as energetic as he was three decades ago.

As one of China's most accomplished contemporary writers, Mo Yan has generated tons of novels that are widely published and have won him multiple honors and awards both at home and abroad.

But he achieved celebrity status largely thanks to the stunning success of the eponymous film adaption of his romantic novel Red Sorghum , which was first published in 1986. The acclaimed director Zhang Yimou made a visually striking movie out of the writer's cinematic and suspenseful grand narrative. The film was a huge hit at the box office. It also won the Golden Bear at the 1988 Berlin International Film Festival.

Since the late 1980s, Mo Yan has deviated from mainstream Chinese literature and created a style to call his own. The Nobel Committee for Literature praised him as the one "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary."

Although Mo Yan acknowledges that Garcia Marquez's magic realism style inspired his writing in some way, he insists that he is trudging on a path independent from Marquez.

Mo Yan, pseudonym of Guan Moye, was born in 1955 in a small village in east China's Shandong Province. His rural hometown has been the fictionalized setting for most of his stories.

The childhood home of Chinese writer Mo Yan in Gaomi County, east China's Shandong Province, April 2, 2018. /CFP

"I am deeply nourished by folk literature," Mo Yan told CGTN, "I dropped out of school at the fifth grade. After that, I worked with my uncles to do farm work for many years. While my peers were reading with their eyes, I was reading with my ears. I listened to the stories of gods and ghosts, historical legends, and anecdotes told by adults."

And his works have drawn on traditional Chinese folk tales. With a mix of realism and surrealism, Mo Yan's stories are meant to take a harsh look at the dark side of life, with an unflinching dissection of humanity. He told CGTN that he was "writing as if he himself is the sinner" when working on his most recent novel Frog, first published in 2009. "A writer must turn his vision and eyes inward and look at his own heart," he said.

Apart from his surreal plots, the dimensions Mo Yan gives to his female protagonist are also hard to ignore. The male writer who once admitted he was a feminist during a magazine interview, has created numerous headstrong and rebellious female characters, such as Shangguan Lu in his epic novel Big Breasts & Wide Hips and Dai Fenglian in Red Sorghum Family. Big Breasts & Wide Hips, a story about a mom and her eight daughters, is considered a tribute to the strong females in China.

Mo Yan laments the miserable destiny of Chinese women in the feudal society, and the female characters in his works stand up against oppression and fight for a way out of despair.

"They rebelled against the feudal system physically. Their body was the only thing they had power over," he said.

Mo Yan is a keen worshipper of maternal love, so much so that he believes motherhood defines part of a woman's identity. He recounted an encounter with a mother of twins, and the stark contrast between the mom's weary look and her twins' rosy cheeks moved him deeply. "The sun was setting, and the afterglow beamed down on them. I felt as if I was looking at a sacred picture."

Kjell Espmark, former chairman of the Nobel Committee for Literature, once said that he believed in Mo Yan's capability in continuously writing great stories even after winning the Nobel Prize.

Mo Yan surely never let people down when it comes to his writing. His latest book A Late Bloomer , a collection of 12 novellas, has won critical acclaim, and people are expecting more from him. During the interview, Mo revealed that his next novel takes on quite a grand theme, and he is still polishing it, without disclosing any further details.

Mo Yan said he will keep writing as long as he can. "Only when I am writing, can I feel the worth and meaning of my life," he said.       

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Mo Yan Biography

Guan Moye, better known as Mo Yan in the literary world, is a renowned Chinese novelist and short-story writer. Despite being born into a poor farming family, he defied the odds and carved a successful literary career solely based on his exceptional talent. Mo Yan’s writing style is diverse and cannot be easily categorized, drawing inspiration from various writers and incorporating elements of older Chinese literature and contemporary social issues. His imaginative and humanistic fiction gained popularity in the 1980s, and he achieved international recognition with his epic novel ‘Red Sorghum’. In 2012, he was honored with the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature. Additionally, many of his works have been adapted into internationally acclaimed movies.

Quick Facts

• Also Known As: Yan Mo, Guan Moye
• Age: 68 Years, 68 Year Old Males
• Spouse/Ex-: Du Qinlan
• Father: Yifan Guan
• Siblings: Moxian Guan, Moxin Guan
• Children: Guan Xiaoxiao
• Nobel Laureates In Literature
• Education: 1991 – Beijing Normal University
• Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature 2012

Childhood & Early Life

Guan Moye was born on 5th March 1955 and grew up in Gaomi in Shandong province in north-eastern China in a poor farming family. He dropped out in the fifth grade of a primary school in his hometown during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. He participated in farm work for years and then started working in a cotton factory in 1973. He joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 1976. His writing stint started in 1981 with short stories. This was the time when he adopted his pen name ‘Mo Yan’, which means “Don’t Speak.”

From 1984 to 86 he studied literature at the PLA Academy of Art. During this period, he published stories such as ‘Touming de hongluobo’ (Transparent Red Radish) and ‘Baozha’ (Explosions). This was a turning point in his literary life. In 1986, he wrote a romantic historical story ‘Honggaoliang’ (Red Sorghum). In 1987, this story was published with four additional stories in ‘Honggaoliang jiazu’ (Red Sorghum Family). In his later works he handled various approaches—from myth to realism, from satire to love story—but his tales were always marked by an impassioned humanism. In 1989 his novel ‘Tiantang suantai zhi ge’ (The Garlic Ballads) and ‘Shisan bu’ (Thirteen Steps) were published. In 1992, the collection of stories ‘Jiuguo’ (The Republic of Wine) came out. His novel ‘Shicao jiazu’ (The Herbivorous Family) was published in 1994, whereas in 1995, ‘Mo Yan wenji’ (Collected Works of Mo Yan) was published. His 1995 novel ‘Fengru feitun’ (Big Breasts and Wide Hips) caused some controversy, both for its sexual content and for its failure to depict class struggle according to the Chinese Communist Party line. Mo was forced by the PLA to write a self-criticism of the book and to withdraw it from publication. However, many pirated copies of this book remained available. After this incidence, he left his position in the PLA in 1997. Later he worked as a newspaper editor and continued writing fiction, with his rural hometown as the setting for his stories. His novel ‘Tanxiangxing’, published in 2004, narrates a story of human cruelty in the crumbling Empire. This book was translated in English as ‘Sandalwood Death’ in 2013. The 2006 novel ‘Shengsi pilao’ uses black humour to describe everyday life and the violent transmogrifications in the young People’s Republic. In 2008, this book was translated as ‘Life and Death are Wearing Me Out’ in English. His later works include the collection of eight stories ‘Shifu yue lai yue mo’ (‘Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh’). This book has been adapted for a film ‘Happy Times’. This film won the ‘Fipresci Prize’ and the ‘Silver Spike’ at the Valladolid International Film Festival in 2000. His book ‘Shengsi pilao’ has been translated in English as ‘Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out’ in 2006. His latest novel ‘Wa’ (translated as ‘Frog’ in English), published in 2009, discusses the consequences of China’s imposition of a single-child policy. Mo Yan’s another short story ‘The White Dog and The Swing’ was adopted for film ‘Nuan’ in 2003. This film won ‘Grand Prix’ at 16th Tokyo International Film Festival 2004.

Major Works

One of his most acclaimed novels is ‘The Red Sorghum Family’, published in 1987. This book gave him fame and recognition as a writer. It was adopted into a film of the same name in 1987. The film won the Golden Bear Award at the 1987 Berlin International Film Festival – the first major international prize awarded to a post-Mao Chinese film. The book consists of five stories that unfold and interweave in Gaomi in several turbulent decades in the 20th century, with depictions of bandit culture, the Japanese occupation and the harsh conditions endured by poor farm workers. This novel was selected by the magazine ‘World Literature Today’ as one of the ‘Top 40’ in its first 75 years of publication and as the best of 1987.

Awards & Achievements

He was one of finalists for ‘Neustadt International Prize for Literature’ awarded in 1998. ‘Kiriyama Prize’ for notable books was awarded to Mo Yan’s book ‘Big Breasts and Wide Hips’ in 2005. Open University of Hong Kong, in 2005, conferred ‘Doctor of Letters’ degree upon him. He won ‘Newman Prize for Chinese Literature’ in 2009 for his book ‘Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out’. In 2010, he became the ‘Honorary Fellow’ of the ‘Modern Language Association’. His translated book ‘Frog’ brought him ‘Mao Dun Literature Prize’ in 2011. He received the highest honor in literature – ‘The Nobel Prize in Literature’ in 2012.

Personal Life & Legacy

Mo Yan married Du Qinlan in 1979. They have a daughter Guan Xiaoxiao born in 1981. His daughter manages all his business and public relation affairs including copyright issues.

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