Mo Yan

Chinese novelist and screenwriter · China · Writers · Born 1955 · age 71

Mo Yan is read about 651 times a day, in 95 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.

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He writes novels where folk myth bleeds into recent history until you can't tell which is memory and which is fever dream - a style the Nobel committee called "hallucinatory realism" when they gave him the literature prize in 2012.

Writers Writer / Author Literature Fiction Screenwriting China Asia 20th Century

A life in dates

2015Honorary Doctor of the Aix-Marseille UniversityAward2012Nobel Prize in LiteratureAward2006Fukuoka Asian Culture PrizeAward2005International Nonino PrizeAward2000Prix Laure BataillonAward1992“A writer should always bravely face life, risking death and mutilation in order to dethrone an emperor.”In their wordsThe Republic of Wine (1992)Read the whole statement

“Am I drunk?" he asked Crewcut. "You're not drunk, Boss," Crewcut replied. "How could a superior individual like you be drunk?”In their wordsChapter I, Section 1Read the whole statement

“For a writer, talent is everything. Lots of people make a career out of writing, producing many works and knowing exactly what it takes to become a great writer.”In their wordsChapter Four, Section 3Read the whole statement

“Liquor infatuates me until I am in capable of following rules and regulations. Liquor's character is wild and unrestrained; its temperament is to talk without thinking.”In their wordsChapter Four, Section IV, Donkey AvenueRead the whole statement

1986“I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort.”In their wordsRed Sorghum: A Novel of China (1986/1987)Read the whole statement

1955Born17 February 1955

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

MoYan Hamburg 2008

20211107 高密莫言文化馆 2

20211107 高密莫言文化馆

DIMG 4377 (8253166242)

DIMG 4571 (8252101631)

DIMG 4572 (8253170864)

DIMG 4602 (8252100753)

Frankfurter Buchmesse 2009 a

In their own words 10

Mo Yan

10 statements, newest first

A writer should always bravely face life, risking death and mutilation in order to dethrone an emperor.
1992, The Republic of Wine (1992), Own words
Am I drunk?" he asked Crewcut. "You're not drunk, Boss," Crewcut replied. "How could a superior individual like you be drunk?
1992, Chapter I, Section 1, Own words
A tidal wave of trucks and carts moved slowly, inexorably toward the now open gate, bumping and clanging into each other as they squeezed through.
1992, Chapter I, Section 1, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

Honorary Doctor of the Aix-Marseille University2015

Nobel Prize in Literature2012

Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize2006

International Nonino Prize2005

Prix Laure Bataillon2000

Honorary Doctor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong

About this person

Born Guan Moye on 5 March 1955, he adopted the pen name Mo Yan - "don't speak" - and broke through in 1984 with the novella A Transparent Radish. Two years later came Red Sorghum, the novel that made him internationally visible; its first sections became the 1988 film that won the Golden Bear. His fiction folds Chinese folklore and twentieth-century turmoil into each other until the seams disappear. In 2012 the Nobel Prize in Literature recognised that fusion, citing work that merges folk tales, history, and the contemporary through hallucinatory realism.

Country

China

Writers from China 6

Liu Xiaobo74.3 Chen Pokong66.8

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