Way of the mystic
Mo Yan, beloved for his humanistic fiction, learned to appreciate the extraordinary in ordinary rural communities, writes Vivian Chen
Republished from South China Morning Post, September 30, 2008
Presented with the richest prize for Chinese-language literature, mainland novelist Mo Yan jokes that he will probably spend the HK$300,000 cash award stocking up on rice. There's a grain of truth behind Mo's sentiments: the 53-year-old writer grew up in the lean times of Mao Zedong's disastrous Great Leap Forward.
"My first memories are of starvation; that is why I have a very intimate feeling towards rice," says Mo, recalling how Mao's industrialisation drive led to a three-year famine in the early 1960s. "What made a family rich was not how much money they had, but how abundant their food supply was."
He was born Guan Moye, the youngest of four children in a Shandong peasant family, and knows from experience how hard it is to grow food ( Mo Yan, his pen name meaning "Don't Speak", is an ironic reference to a childhood habit of talking to himself).
"When farmers see luxury watches, gold rings and precious antiques, what they think about is not how valuable these things are but whether they can feed their family and continue their lives," says Mo, who was in town last week to accept the Dream of the Red Chamber Award given once every two years.
Established by the Baptist University three years ago to honour distinguished Chinese-language fiction, this year's prize pays tribute to his 2005 novel Shengsi Pilao, released in English translation in May as Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.