Nobel winner Mo Yan expected to avoid politics in Sweden

China’s Nobel literature winner Mo Yan heads to Sweden on Wednesday to collect his award, but he walks a delicate line with the authorities and is likely to avoid mentioning in his speech jailed fellow laureate Liu Xiaobo.

Mo Yan has been hailed as a national hero since the prize announcement in October, and his works have rocketed up China’s best-seller lists. But he has also had to contend with criticism from activists who brand him a stooge for the ruling Communist Party.

State media reported the writer was leaving on Wednesday for Stockholm, where he will give his Nobel lecture on Friday ahead of the prize ceremony on Monday.

Until the award Mo Yan had won critical praise but little mainstream fame for his works, which blend harshly realistic accounts of life in China’s countryside with fantastical and sometimes grotesque satire, including cannibalism and orgiastic feasting.

But the announcement prompted Chinese readers to snap up his books, leaving retailers around the country with empty shelves.

He earned royalties of 21.5 million yuan (US$3.5 million) this year, the second-highest of any Chinese writer, according to an annual survey.