https://www.scmp.com/rss/275814/feed Mo Yan, born on February 17, 1955, is a renowned Chinese author. He is the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012. Mo is best known in the West for two of his novels which were the basis of the film Red Sorghum. He was appointed a deputy chairman of the quasi-official Chinese Writers' Association in November 2011. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Yuanyue Dang Yuanyue Dang Chinese novelist Yan Lianke is considered a strong contender to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yan uses magical and absurd imagery to depict the realities of rural China, particularly the lives of ordinary people in the Mao Zedong era. His awards include the Franz Kafka Prize, the Dream of the Red Chamber Award and the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. Yan is a professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing and a chair professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and... https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3326870/yan-lianke-chinese-novelist-and-nobel-prize-contender-writers-role?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3326870/yan-lianke-chinese-novelist-and-nobel-prize-contender-writers-role?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Sep 2025 11:05:30 +0000 Last October, I had the honour and pleasure of participating in the Frankfurt Book Fair, since my memoir, “Socialism Is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China, had just come out in Germany. As I wandered from one Chinese publisher’s exhibition stand to another, images of President Xi Jinping’s smiling face followed me. Quite a few publishers were promoting his political thoughts, with books such as Xi Jinping: The Governance of China. Almost exactly 11 years ago, during his first year of... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3270095/tell-chinas-story-well-its-writers-must-be-free-enough-do-so?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3270095/tell-chinas-story-well-its-writers-must-be-free-enough-do-so?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Jul 2024 01:30:08 +0000 The novel Red Sorghum is a personal favourite. A paean to the defiant spirits of the Chinese people, it was penned by Guan Moye – also known as Mo Yan – the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012. Narrating both the triumphs and tribulations of ordinary Chinese people, it tells a captivating story in magical realist tones. Through the lenses of a Shandong family, the reader comes to appreciate five decades of history – from the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s and the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3255807/how-ultranationalists-undercut-chinas-efforts-win-worlds-love?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3255807/how-ultranationalists-undercut-chinas-efforts-win-worlds-love?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 20 Mar 2024 01:30:16 +0000 China’s most famous science-fiction writer, Liu Cixin, said he used ChatGPT to help compose his recent public speech, which reinforced his belief about the potential of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to replace certain human activity. “ChatGPT, of course, will make an impact on human existence and society, but its influence won’t result in AI-ruled humans like what happens in science fiction,” Liu told Michael Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental Education & Technology Group, in a... https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3222986/chinese-science-fiction-writer-liu-cixin-author-three-body-problem-uses-chatgpt-craft-speech-expects?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3222986/chinese-science-fiction-writer-liu-cixin-author-three-body-problem-uses-chatgpt-craft-speech-expects?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Jun 2023 10:30:18 +0000 Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan shocked the crowd at a literary event on Tuesday when he revealed he had used ChatGPT to write a speech praising fellow author Yu Hua. Mo was set to present Yu with a book award at the Shanghai Dance Centre during the 65th anniversary celebration of Shouhuo, a magazine that has played a significant role in shaping the landscape of Chinese literature. The air was thick with anticipation as the two literary luminaries, both friends and rivals, took the stage. “The... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3221032/somebody-may-call-police-chinese-nobel-prize-winner-mo-yan-turns-chatgpt-beat-writers-block?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3221032/somebody-may-call-police-chinese-nobel-prize-winner-mo-yan-turns-chatgpt-beat-writers-block?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 May 2023 00:00:12 +0000 Back in 2012, novelist Mo Yan became the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Almost a decade later, Sima Nan, a television pundit, commentator and vlogger known for his nationalistic, anti-West stance, has proffered a theory about why. In his telling, the award was a Western effort to use the writer to attack the Chinese system and smear the motherland. To make his case, Sima cited a speech in which Mo said: “I have a prejudice. I think literature should never be a tool... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3184342/top-censorship-chinese-writers-now-have-contend-attacks-patriotic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3184342/top-censorship-chinese-writers-now-have-contend-attacks-patriotic?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Jul 2022 01:15:21 +0000 After years of juggling speaking engagements and public commitments since winning the Nobel Literature Prize, Chinese writer Mo Yan now says it is time to get back to his writing desk. Speaking in Hong Kong the 63-year-old novelist explained that he had gradually stepped away from the Nobel spotlight and learned to largely ignore the public’s high expectations, comparing himself to an athlete who needs to unwind to perform well in a major competition. “Some athletes perform well in regular... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2144774/i-needed-step-out-spotlight-why-chinese-nobel-literature-prize?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2144774/i-needed-step-out-spotlight-why-chinese-nobel-literature-prize?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 May 2018 02:55:30 +0000 Nobel Laureate Mo Yan will teach Chinese writing and literature at a Taiwanese university beginning next year. The National Taiwan Normal University announced on Thursday that Mo Yan, who is from the mainland, would lecture on literature and the cross-strait literary experience. Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature last year. "Taiwanese writers are very good, and there is a good literary environment here," the university quoted him as saying on its website. The university's president, Chang... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1324769/nobel-laureate-mo-yan-will-teach-taiwan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1324769/nobel-laureate-mo-yan-will-teach-taiwan?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Oct 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Q: How have different literary traditions influenced your writing? A: Every writer in China is influenced by Chinese literature and Western literature. For Chinese literature, writers are influenced in two ways. They are influenced by the poems from the Tang dynasty and novels from the Ming and Qing dynasties. They are also influenced by folk tales. In my case, folk tales have a greater impact on my writing. In your Nobel award speech you spoke a lot about your mother. You mentioned that after... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1310645/mo-yan-shares-some-nobel-thoughts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1310645/mo-yan-shares-some-nobel-thoughts?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Sep 2013 20:12:49 +0000 Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan has revealed in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post that he believes censorship has motivated authors to write about topics seen as taboo. The novelist, who won the literature prize almost a year ago, sparked controversy before the awards ceremony in Stockholm by saying mainland censorship was a "necessary evil". The decision of the Nobel Committee to award the prize to Mo Yan - a long-time Communist Party member and vice-chairman of the... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1310577/censorship-has-spurred-writers-says-nobel-prize-winner-mo-yan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1310577/censorship-has-spurred-writers-says-nobel-prize-winner-mo-yan?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Sep 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Mo Yan emerged as one of China's most prominent and influential authors during the 1980s, but came to worldwide attention in October last year when he became the first Chinese national to be awarded he Nobel Prize for Literature. Born Guan Moye in 1955 to a family of farmers in Gaomi, Shandong, Mo left school aged 11 to work the land. At the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, he joined the People's Liberation Army and began to write. In 1984 he attended the Military Art Academy and adopted... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1310404/mo-yan-farm-labourer-literary-superstar?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1310404/mo-yan-farm-labourer-literary-superstar?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Sep 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Primate fossils reveal early coexistence Newly unearthed ape and monkey fossils prove that the cousin species lived side-by-side in Africa as long as 25 million years ago, according to a study published in Nature. This is at least five million years earlier than fossil evidence has so far been able to show, according to a team of scientists from the United States, Australia and Tanzania. "These discoveries suggest that the members of the major primate groups that today include apes and Old World... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1240793/short-science-may-19-2013?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1240793/short-science-may-19-2013?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Petitions Southern Metropolis Daily* reports on the State Bureau for Letters and Calls trying to abolish its controversial grading system. China News Service* Petitioners may not be intercepted in public spaces, says a member of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission. Global Times The White House "cannot be the foreign 'petition office' of China". (Zhu Ling case) Civil society Xiaoxiang Morning News* Survey: 80 per cent of urban residents want to move to away from large... https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1232746/china-news-round-china-closes-n-korean-bank-account-mo-yan-just-wants?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1232746/china-news-round-china-closes-n-korean-bank-account-mo-yan-just-wants?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 May 2013 23:01:55 +0000 Pow! by Mo Yan translated by Howard Goldblatt Seagull Books Mo Yan's first novel to appear in English since the Nobel honour, Pow! reads like public masturbation; at times laughable, in the end it reminds readers that such an act should be done in private rather than in print. The novel opens with a young man telling his family story to an old monk, reversing the well-known formula for childhood stories in which an old monk tells a story to a young one. The storytelling narrative thread teems... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1197110/book-review-pow-mo-yan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1197110/book-review-pow-mo-yan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan has hit back at critics who accused him of being too close to China’s government, saying in a newspaper interview he does not write on behalf of the ruling Communist party. The writer scooped the Nobel in October for what judges called his “hallucinatory realism” and has won praise from literary critics, but is also fiercely attacked by Chinese dissidents who brand him a Communist stooge. I have emphasised repeatedly that I am writing on behalf of the people,... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1163504/china-nobel-winner-mo-yan-defies-critics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1163504/china-nobel-winner-mo-yan-defies-critics?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Feb 2013 11:59:23 +0000 Chinese author Mo Yan, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, came under fire late last year for choosing not to condemn the principles of censorship, comparing it, perhaps flippantly, to inconvenient yet necessary airport security checks. Salman Rushdie took to Facebook to label Mo "a patsy of the regime" and criticise his refusal to sign a petition calling for the release of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo . The episode highlighted the expectations among people outside China of how... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1135292/chinas-reformers-within?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1135292/chinas-reformers-within?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Mo Yan's first novel to be published in English since he won last year's Nobel prize for literature is a strange, gruesome, vivid and ambitious historical novel set during the Boxer Rebellion (1898-1901). As the 20th century struggles into being, the grand narratives that will dominate most of the next 100 years (war, genocide, empire, economics, technology, guerilla warfare) are played out in ways that are at once intimate and epic, personal and political, realistic and surreal. At the centre... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1130974/mo-yans-boxer-rebellion-novel-orgy-pain-and-pleasure?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1130974/mo-yans-boxer-rebellion-novel-orgy-pain-and-pleasure?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Barack Obama The US president is back for a second term after an election victory that proved slightly less tight than the polls had predicted. Obama has defied a gloomy economic outlook and political gridlock to secure another four years in the White House. His challenge now is to improve the US economy and maintain America's pre-eminence in the world, not least through its pivot to Asia, seen as a means to contain China's rise.   Mo Yan The author became the first Chinese national to win the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1115445/good-year?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1115445/good-year?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 For a writer who insists that interviews are like reliving her interrogation by Romania’s secret police, Herta Mueller has a reassuringly robust laugh. When I meet the Nobel laureate in a London hotel, she clutches my arm and whispers: “I am a broken person.” Yet as she recounts the psychological terror and surveillance she endured under the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, her resilient mirth contradicts her. A keen sense of comic absurdity may partly account for her survival. Born... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1103731/made-be-broken?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1103731/made-be-broken?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Author Mo Yan's speech at the Nobel awards banquet in Sweden has stirred mixed reactions from the public. Some deemed it honest, while others denounced his silence on the issue of mainland censorship. In a five-minute televised speech at the Stockholm concert hall on Monday night, the 57-year-old Nobel literature prize winner stressed his humble upbringing in Gaomi city, Shandong, and described his win as "a fairy tale". My experiences in the months since the announcement have made me aware of... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1103244/mo-yans-nobel-speech-splits-public-opinion?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1103244/mo-yans-nobel-speech-splits-public-opinion?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Yesterday's UN Human Rights Day was marked by the starkly different fates of China's two Nobel laureates. While Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan hogged the limelight at the awards ceremony in Stockholm yesterday, 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo remains behind bars, convicted on subversion charges and serving an 11-year sentence at a prison more than 400 kilometres northeast of Beijing. Apart from celebrating the 64th anniversary of the UN General Assembly's adoption of the Universal... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1102525/stark-contrast-chinas-nobel-laureates-one-feted-one-behind-bars?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1102525/stark-contrast-chinas-nobel-laureates-one-feted-one-behind-bars?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Mo Yan was given the Nobel Prize for Literature Award and a cheque for 8 million Swedish krona (HK$9.25 million) in a televised ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall last night. In a presentation speech, Per Wastberg, chairman of the Nobel Committee, described Mo as a poet who "tears down stereotypical propaganda posters". "Using ridicule and sarcasm Mo Yan attacks history and its falsifications as well as deprivation and political hypocrisy," he said. Wastberg cited Mo's novel Republic of Wine as... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1102604/mo-yan-picks-literature-award?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1102604/mo-yan-picks-literature-award?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The deprivations of a jail sentence are not limited to the prisoner. Families also pay the price, emotionally and materially, especially for the sins of the father, if he is the breadwinner. Sadly, society can turn the screw with prejudice and discrimination. But extrajudicial retribution directed at the spouse of a prisoner takes it to another level that makes a villain of the state, too. A case in point is Liu Xia, wife of Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo . He is essentially a political... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1101713/nobel-peace-prize-winners-harsh-sentence-demeans-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1101713/nobel-peace-prize-winners-harsh-sentence-demeans-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Mo Yan's Nobel lecture did little to dispel ongoing controversy in China's literary circles, with state media widely covering this year's literature prize winner even as dissident artists piled on derision. In the traditional Nobel lecture in Stockholm on Friday, Mo, the vice-chairman of the government-backed China Writers' Association, took a swipe at his critics, saying their target "had nothing to do" with him and urging them to read his books. Mo has walked a tightrope during his stay in... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1100991/mo-yans-nobel-prize-lecture-scorned-china-dissidents?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1100991/mo-yans-nobel-prize-lecture-scorned-china-dissidents?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The president is given a 'top secret' folder. [It] contains information about aliens Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev jokes around, unaware the cameras are still rolling   At first I thought I was the target of the disputes, but over time I've come to realise the real target was a person who had nothing to do with me Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan comments on the controversy surrounding his prize   We can send a message about waste, and that's the most important part, the education Gewah... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1100942/who-said-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1100942/who-said-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Mo Yan was assailed on Saturday in the Chinese dissident community as a “prostitute” after his Nobel lecture, which was acclaimed in the communist state’s media. In the Nobel lecture in Stockholm on Friday, Mo, the vice-chairman of the government-backed China Writers’ Association, took a swipe at his critics, saying their target “had nothing to do” with him, and urged them to read his books. Mo has walked a tightrope during his stay in Stockholm, where he will pick up the award on Monday, with... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1100781/mo-yans-nobel-lecture-derided-dissidents?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1100781/mo-yans-nobel-lecture-derided-dissidents?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:48:26 +0000 Chinese Nobel litreature laureate Mo Yan on Friday took a swipe at his critics in the traditional Nobel lecture, saying their target “had nothing to do” with him and urging them to read his books. The writer has walked a tightrope during his stay in Stockholm, where he will pick up the award on Monday, with some pundits supporting his own claims that he is “independent”, and others casting him as a Beijing stooge. Mo Yan is the vice-chairman of the government-backed China Writers’ Association,... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1100542/nobel-laureate-mo-yan-takes-swipe-critics-lecture?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1100542/nobel-laureate-mo-yan-takes-swipe-critics-lecture?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Dec 2012 02:07:17 +0000 Criticisms of Mo Yan for refusing to talk about Liu Xiaobo during his trip to Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize for literature are sickening, mindless and petty. He chose literature, not dissent or human rights, as a career and personal choice. He has every right to stick to his own conscience, which is devotion to literature, and not to follow politically correct fashion. Some mainland citizens become dissidents out of conscience, anger and/or a deep sense of injustice; others do it for less... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1100142/lius-fight-not-mo-yans-responsibility?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1100142/lius-fight-not-mo-yans-responsibility?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:00:01 +0000 More than 40 high-profile Chinese writers, lawyers and activists have sent an open letter to the new leader of the Communist Party Xi Jinping, urging him to free jailed Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo. Signatories, all of whom are based in the mainland, include outspoken legal scholar He Weifang, human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who has worked with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and Aids activist Hu Jia. The letter comes as Chinese writer Mo Yan prepares to collect the Nobel literature prize next week. The... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1098915/chinese-writers-nobel-winners-call-liu-xiaobos-release?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1098915/chinese-writers-nobel-winners-call-liu-xiaobos-release?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Dec 2012 05:14:47 +0000 CY Leung speaks at FCC Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying joins a special lunch at the city's Foreign Correspondents Club to give a speech entitled "Hong Kong: the next five years". Leung has endured a tough start to his term in the city's top job and foreign journalists are expected to put him on the spot over controversies including the row over national education and the illegal structures at his home on The Peak.   Mo Yan meets world's press Nobel Literature Prize laureate Mo Yan meets the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1098416/talking-points?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1098416/talking-points?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 China's Nobel literature winner, Mo Yan, headed to Sweden yesterday to collect his award, but he walks a delicate line with the authorities and is expected to avoid mentioning his jailed fellow laureate Liu Xiaobo. Mo Yan has been hailed as a national hero since the announcement in October that he had won the prize, and his works have rocketed up China's bestseller lists. But he has also had to contend with criticism from activists who brand him a stooge for the ruling Communist Party. State... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1098421/mo-yan-walks-delicate-line-his-way-collect-nobel-literature-prize?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1098421/mo-yan-walks-delicate-line-his-way-collect-nobel-literature-prize?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 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... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1098165/china-nobel-winner-mo-yan-expected-avoid-politics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1098165/china-nobel-winner-mo-yan-expected-avoid-politics?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Dec 2012 09:42:41 +0000 Novelist Mo Yan will leave Beijing tomorrow to receive the first Nobel Prize for literature awarded to a Chinese citizen. Mo will attend the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday along with the other most recent Nobel laureates, according to Shao Chunsheng, an official in charge of broadcasting and publishing in Gaomi city, Shandong province, which is Mo's hometown. Shao spoke to West China City Daily, adding that Mo's wife and daughter would join him. The newspaper also... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1096829/mo-yan-leave-beijing-tomorrow-date-nobel-prize-glory?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1096829/mo-yan-leave-beijing-tomorrow-date-nobel-prize-glory?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Less than two months after winning the Nobel Prize for literature, Mo Yan can claim another distinction: China's second-richest writer. New interest in his work at home and abroad brought the 57-year-old novelist estimated annual royalties of 21.5 million yuan (HK$26.5 million) and catapulted him to No2 on the new China's Richest Writers List released yesterday. Last year, the author failed to make the top 30. But the surge in book sales was not enough to unseat renowned children's author, Zheng... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1094178/nobel-winner-mo-yan-countrys-second-wealthiest-writer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1094178/nobel-winner-mo-yan-countrys-second-wealthiest-writer?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Promotion for foreign affairs deputy The deputy director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' information department, Hua Chunying, had been appointed a spokeswoman, Xinhua said yesterday. Hua has worked in the foreign affairs field for 20 years, with particular experience in Europe and Asia. He Huifeng   Politburo to share 'spirit of the congress' The Communist Party's new Politburo met yesterday to arrange implementation of the spirit of the just-concluded 18th national congress. The... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1084355/briefs-november-17-2012?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1084355/briefs-november-17-2012?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 As a novelist who has managed to excel under the mainland's strict censorship regime, Nobel Prize laureate Mo Yan has been called many things. It's safe to say that "ballroom dancer" was never one them. But the much sought-after writer and his wife have been practicing their dance steps in preparation for the grand ceremonies in Stockholm next month when he will become the first Chinese national to receive the coveted literature award. Mo Yan's elder brother, Guan Moxian, disclosed the author's... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1079592/after-staying-step-censors-mo-yan-can-dance-his-own-tune?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1079592/after-staying-step-censors-mo-yan-can-dance-his-own-tune?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 LGBT bars or events such as the pride march are a big tourist attraction for lesbians Humanities professor Dr Lucetta Kam Yip-lo on the number of lesbians visiting the city   Mo Yan is learning dancing because the Swedish king and queen will be present … and he should … fit in with the event's grand atmosphere Mo's brother on the novelist's preparations for the Nobel ceremony   I have dedicated my life to the novel ... Enough is enough Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Roth on why he is... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1079618/who-said-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1079618/who-said-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 BEIJING Kickback hotlines Eight hospitals in the capital now have hotlines for the public to report staff members who ask for cash gifts or other kickbacks, the Beijing Morning Post reports. And in a further effort to stop doctors taking cash gifts from patients, the municipal health bureau has opened a bank account into which doctors may deposit cash gifts that they were unable to refuse. Suspended death sentence A man received a suspended death sentence on Monday for killing a prostitute... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1073506/china-digest-october-31-2012?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1073506/china-digest-october-31-2012?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 I still remember that afternoon more than 20 years ago when I first read Red Sorghum. I was bowled over. I hadn't yet come across the works of William Faulkner or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and as I read Red Sorghum then, I felt a rush of elation that a story about "my grandfather" and "my grandmother" could be told so boldly and without restraint. Now when I reread the novel to try and recapture that thrill, I realised it is gone for good. I also tried to read Mo Yan's other works that I hadn't... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1066541/writers-should-be-true-their-convictions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1066541/writers-should-be-true-their-convictions?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Should every mainland artist or intellectual who has achieved prominence shout at the top of their lungs against the central authorities and become, inevitably thereafter, dissidents? Some foreign critics and mainland dissidents seem to think so. And that seems to be the gist of their criticisms against Mo Yan since he won this year's Nobel Prize for literature. Much has been made by his critics about his pen name, which means silence or say nothing. But his name might have been meant... https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1066763/sensible-tactic-preserve-creative-space?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1066763/sensible-tactic-preserve-creative-space?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 A widely circulated Sina Weibo post, sardonically linking Nobel laureate Mo Yan to two more controversial Chinese celebrities, perhaps best illustrated the public's conflicted feelings about the media frenzy surrounding the writer's award. "After Mo Yan won the Nobel Literature Prize, Luo Yufeng announced that she's fallen in love with him and Fang Zhouzi claimed to have found evidence Mo Yan had others write his works," the post read. For those who have been living under a rock - or at least... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1065884/separating-fact-fiction-about-mo-yan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1065884/separating-fact-fiction-about-mo-yan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Mo Yan The author became the first Chinese national to with the Nobel Prize for Literature and immediately found himself feted and condemned in almost equal measure. The novelist, real name Guan Moye , was praised by the judges in Stockholm for his "unique way of writing", but many Chinese dissidents accused him of being too close to the Communist Party. Mo Yan can, at least, find solace in the 8 million Swedish krona (HK$9.25 million) prize.   Nguyen Tan Dung Vietnam's prime minister clung on... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1066014/good-week-october-21-2012?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1066014/good-week-october-21-2012?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Count authorities in Mo Yan's hometown Gaomi among those looking to cash in on the writer's sudden fame since winning the Nobel Prize for literature last week. Officials in the backwater Shandong city have announced plans to spend about 670 million yuan (HK$ 825 million) on Mo Yan-themed projects designed to lure tourists. At the top of the list is a 666-hectare plantation of red sorghum, the coarse grain that Mo selected as the title of his break-out 1987 novel, The Beijing News reported... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1064403/mo-yans-hometown-gaomi-plans-cash-writers-nobel-prize?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1064403/mo-yans-hometown-gaomi-plans-cash-writers-nobel-prize?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 A Chinese city hopes to cash in on the success of its most famous resident, Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan, by investing millions in a tourist zone dedicated to the writer, Chinese media said on Thursday. Gaomi, a city in eastern China’s Shandong province, will invest US$107 million in projects to honour Mo Yan, who has set most of his gritty stories of Chinese peasant life in the area, the Beijing News reported. The city will build a “Mo Yan Culture Experience Zone”, and plant 650... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1063986/mo-yan-culture-experience-zone-planned-nobel-laureates-hometown?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1063986/mo-yan-culture-experience-zone-planned-nobel-laureates-hometown?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 Oct 2012 06:39:48 +0000 As expected, Beijing celebrated Mo Yan's award of the Nobel Prize for literature as a national triumph. Also unsurprisingly, though, critics and activists have questioned whether Mo's Communist Party membership qualifies him for the honour and whether the Swedish Academy sent the right message to the Chinese regime by honouring him. The award committee tried to extract itself from this issue by claiming that it was "awarded on literary merit alone", especially for his use of "hallucinatory... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1063311/mos-works-line-nobel-vision?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1063311/mos-works-line-nobel-vision?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 China has scaled another height with author Mo Yan's award of the Nobel Prize for literature. It's only a matter of time before it overtakes the US as the world's No 1 economy. There is no doubting the nation's rising political clout, while the commissioning of its first aircraft carrier shows a determination for military greatness. The big question, then, is: when will it become a superpower? Some analysts predict that day will come when Beijing can truly call Taiwan its own - which is another... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061808/china-needs-more-nobel-literature-winner-win-fans?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061808/china-needs-more-nobel-literature-winner-win-fans?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Sympathetic though we may be to the Philippines in the face of the Hong Kong government's absurd and surely racist attitude to the country, the Philippines can be its tourism industry's own worst enemy. A reader writes to say he had entered the country a few days earlier with a bag of golf balls in his hand luggage but found that when he was leaving, the few remaining balls could not be taken on board and had to be surrendered. Remonstrations finally produced a list of banned hand-carry items,... https://www.scmp.com/business/article/1061944/beware-golf-ball-racket-philippines-airport?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/article/1061944/beware-golf-ball-racket-philippines-airport?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Should we applaud the relentless efficiency of our civil service, or decry its time-wasting stupidity? Businessman Markus Shaw, after the government spent HK$25 writing to ask him to rectify an error in election expenses of less than HK$1   I'm now under great pressure and have a lot to worry about. So how can I be happy? Author Mo Yan on the demands and expectations of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature   Everyone has limits - not everyone accepts them Austrian skydiver "Fearless Felix"... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061895/who-said-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061895/who-said-it?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Mo Yan says the demands and expectations of being the first Chinese national to win the Nobel Prize for literature is dampening the joy he feels about receiving the award. In an interview with China Central Television's One On One, the Nobel laureate declined to say whether he was "happy" about receiving the international honour last week, which many have taken as a validation of modern Chinese writing. "I have never thought about this question," Mo Yan said on the Sunday night programme. "I'm... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1061974/nobel-prize-brings-it-great-pressure-laureate-mo-yan-says?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1061974/nobel-prize-brings-it-great-pressure-laureate-mo-yan-says?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 On hearing the news of Mo Yan's Nobel win and seeing the many negative respones that accompanied it, poet Jian Ning had this lesser-known story to share on Sina Weibo about Mo's hand a several years ago in helping film director Jia Zhangke overcome a ban on his films: Given all this fierce criticism, I just want to say something about Mo Yan's sense of morality. In two words: kindness and sincerity. And not just for himself. Before the ban on Jia Zhangke's films had been lifted, Mo spoke out... https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1061465/mo-yan-censorship-fighter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1061465/mo-yan-censorship-fighter?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:13:55 +0000