The Unexpected Nobel Prize?

2012年10月11日，诺贝尔文学奖揭晓，莫言成为首位获得该奖的中国籍作家。一时间，引起各界的热议，有认可的，有质疑的。各位同学，你们怎么看？

Mo Yan has become the first Chinese to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writing of （American writer) William Faulkner and （Columbian writer) Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral literature,” said the award statement released on Oct 11, 2012.

“I grew up in an environment immersed with folk culture, which inevitably comes in to my novels when I pick up a pen to write. This has definitely affected, even decided, my works’ artistic style,” Mo told a group of reporters in his hometown of Gaomi, Shandong, shortly after he won the award.

Although China boasts a tradition of literature and scholarship, few writers have won international prizes. For this reason, the Nobel Prize in Literature has always been an aspiration for Chinese writers.

“I really didn’t see this coming,” Lu Jiande, director of the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said. “I know Mo Yan pretty well and one thing a lot of people don’t know is how good he is with words.”

“His words is surprisingly beautiful. In his writing, he can make words live and breathe,” Lu said. “He is far ahead of other Chinese in the sense that he takes the critical perspective inside first, starting from criticizing himself instead of the outside world.”

Mo created a cast of colorful characters and said that if there was a prototype, it would be the abandoned “black boy” who first appeared in the 1985 novel Red Transparent Radish, which bears imprints of the author’s childhood.

Mo dropped out of school and became a cattle herder as a child. At 20, he left his hometown and joined the army.

Gaomi County is where most of Mo’s stories happen. It’s a place that has inspired him throughout his 31?year writing career.

Many got to know of Mo through director Zhang Yimou’s film, Red Sorghum. It was adapted from his novel written in 1986 of the same name, bringing to life a visual landscape of red sorghum fields and a fiery setting sun. Set in Gaomi, the novel tells the story of a sedan carrier who saves the bride he is carrying from bandits and later marries her.

Mo left the army in 1997 and gradually developed a writing style all of his own. History, family sagas, blood and violence are frequent elements in his most famous works, such as Big Breasts and Wide Hips and Sandalwood Penalty.

Some critics point out that Mo’s works have a tendency toward vulgarity.

In an interview with South China Morning Post, Professor Xiao Ying of Tsinghua University said the award was “beyond my expectations, as Mo Yan’s works are still short on the idealism of pursuing humanity, which marks those previous winners of Nobel Prize in Literature”.

“Mo Yan’s works are rather vulgar and dark and lack a sincere sympathy and respect for human beings and life,” Xiao said.

Lu said Mo’s works had a richness and complexity beyond the publicity his books usually enjoyed. However, he also pointed out that “in general, Chinese literature tends to be overly admiring of sheer power, and unquestioningly approving of human desire and materiality.”

“We haven’t been critical enough of the weakness, dark side and distortion of human nature,” he said.