Chinese writer Mo Yan wins Nobel Prize in literature

BEIJING — Novelist Mo Yan, whose popular, sprawling, bawdy tales bring to life rural China, won the Nobel Prize for literature Thursday, the first time the award has been given to a Chinese who is not a critic of the authoritarian government. Official media and many Chinese cheered his selection.

The Swedish Academy in Stockholm, which selects the winners of the prestigious prize, announced the award to the author of dozens of novels and short stories. It praised Mo's "hallucinatory realism," saying it "merges folk tales, history and the contemporary."

The announcement triggered an explosion of pride across Chinese social media. The state-run national broadcaster, China Central Television, reported the news moments later, and the official writers' association, of which Mo is a vice chairman, lauded the choice. But it also ignited renewed criticisms of Mo from other writers as too willing to serve or too timid to confront a government which heavily censors artists and authors and punishes those who refuse to obey.

The reactions highlight the unusual position Mo holds in Chinese literature. He is a genuinely popular writer who is embraced by the Communist establishment but who also dares, within careful limits, to tackle controversial issues like forced abortion. His novel "The Garlic Ballads" which depicts a peasant uprising and official corruption was banned.

"He's one of those people who's a bit of a sharp point for the Chinese officials, yet manages to keep his head above water," said his longtime U.S. translator, Howard Goldblatt of the University of Notre Dame. "That's a fine line to walk, as you can imagine."

Typical of his ability to skirt the censors' limitations, Mo had retreated from Beijing in recent days to the rural eastern village of Gaomi where he was raised and which is the backdrop for much of his work. He greeted the prize with characteristic low-key indifference.

"Whether getting it or not, I don't care," the 57-year-old Mo said in a telephone interview with CCTV from Gaomi. He said he goes to his childhood hometown every year around this time to read, write and visit his elderly father.

"I'll continue on the path I've been taking, feet on the ground, describing people's lives, describing people's emotions, writing from the standpoint of the ordinary people," said Mo, whose real name is Guan Moye and whose penname "Mo Yan" means "don't speak."

The state media hoopla and government cheer contrasted with the last Nobel prizes given Chinese. Beijing disowned China-born French emigre dramatist, novelist and government critic Gao Xingjian when in 2000 he became the only other Chinese writer to win the literary prize.