Mo Yan
Guan Moye (simplified Chinese: 管谟业; traditional Chinese: 管謨業; pinyin: Guǎn Móyè; born 17 February 1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan (/moʊ jɛn/, 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".
Mo Yan | |
|---|---|
Mo Yan in 2008 | |
| Native name | 莫言 |
| Born | Guan Moye (管谟业) 17 February 1955 Gaomi, Shandong, China |
| Pen name | Mo Yan |
| Occupation | Writer, teacher |
| Language | Chinese |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Education | Master of Literature and Art – Beijing Normal University (1991) Graduated – People's Liberation Army Arts College (1986) |
| Period | Contemporary |
| Literary movement | Magical realism |
| Years active | 1981 – present |
| Notable works | Red Sorghum Clan, The Republic of Wine, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 |
| Spouse |
Du Qinlan (杜勤兰) (m. 1979) |
| Children | Guan Xiaoxiao (管笑笑) (Born in 1981) |
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). He won the 2005 International Nonino Prize in Italy. In 2009, he was the first recipient of the University of Oklahoma's Newman Prize for Chinese Literature.