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Mo Yan

A bookshop in Foshan, Guangdong province, seen on December 15, 2021. China has not produced enough titles that both explain China and genuinely appeal to Western readers. The problem lies with the authorities’ overly strict control. Photo: AFP

Opinion | China could tell its story better by telling the whole story, warts and all

The most compelling stories are the human ones. China must allow books and films that don’t always portray it in glowing terms.

14 Jul 2024 - 12:00PMvideocam

Opinion | Ultranationalist frenzy hampering China’s ability to tell its story

20 Mar 2024 - 10:23AMvideocam

‘I was running out of time’: sci-fi author Liu Cixin writes speech using ChatGPT

5 Jun 2023 - 6:30PMvideocam

Chinese Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan turns to ChatGPT to beat writer’s block

Literary giant known for Red Sorghum reveals AI chatbot helped him craft speech for fellow author Yu Hua, but stresses his novels are his own work, prompting social media users to debate merits and legal pitfalls of the tech tool.

19 May 2023 - 8:00AM

Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan said ChatGPT helped him generate “a thousand words of Shakespearean-style praise” for an award ceremony speech. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Opinion | Chinese patriotic trolls are hating on writers and that’s worrying

Nationalistic commentator Sima Nan has sparked debate about the role of literature following his attack on Nobel laureate Mo Yan for failing to celebrate China. Perhaps he hopes to ride the wave of patriotism surging across China, but this is a worrying development for the Chinese literary scene.

9 Jul 2022 - 9:15AMvideocam

Mo Yan: I needed to step out of the spotlight and start writing again

5 May 2018 - 11:23PM

Nobel laureate Mo Yan will teach in Taiwan

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.

5 Oct 2013 - 4:35AM

Taiwan Normal University president Chang Kuo-en (left) and Mo Yan. Photo: SCMP

Exclusive | Mo Yan shares some Nobel thoughts

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.

16 Sep 2013 - 5:43AM

Exclusive | Censorship has spurred writers, says Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan

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.

16 Sep 2013 - 8:21AM

Mo Yan: from farm labourer to literary superstar

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.

16 Sep 2013 - 5:19AM

Short Science, May 19, 2013

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.

19 May 2013 - 1:38AM

Morning Clicks | China news round-up: China closes N Korean bank account, Mo Yan 'just wants to write'

29 Aug 2013 - 4:13AM

Book review: Pow!, by Mo Yan

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.

24 Mar 2013 - 4:51PM

China Nobel winner Mo Yan defies critics

28 Feb 2013 - 7:59PM

Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan. Photo: KY Cheng

China's reformers within

25 Jan 2013 - 2:35AM

Mo Yan's Boxer Rebellion novel an orgy of pain and pleasure

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.

22 Jan 2013 - 3:12PM

A good year for ...

30 Dec 2012 - 5:59AM

Made to be broken

Nobel prize winner Herta Mueller, who has labelled fellow laureate Mo Yan's award a 'catastrophe', tells Maya Jaggi that life under a communist regime drove her 'mad'.

15 Dec 2012 - 11:27PM

The house in Nitchidorf village where Mueller lived. Photos: AFP; Corbis; Getty Images; Eamonn McCabe/The Guardian

Mo Yan's Nobel speech splits public opinion

12 Dec 2012 - 7:08AM

Stark contrast for China's Nobel laureates - one fêted, one behind bars

11 Dec 2012 - 10:02AM

Mo Yan picks up literature award

11 Dec 2012 - 7:19AMvideocam

Mo Yan receives his Nobel Prize from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf in Stockholm last night. Photo: EPA

Nobel peace prize winner's harsh sentence demeans Beijing

10 Dec 2012 - 1:28AM

Mo Yan's Nobel Prize lecture scorned by China dissidents

9 Dec 2012 - 4:30AM

Who said it?

9 Dec 2012 - 3:06AM

Mo Yan’s Nobel lecture derided by dissidents

8 Dec 2012 - 9:17PM

Mo Yan, China's 2012 Nobel Literature Prize laureate, speaks at a reception at the Chinese Embassy in Stockholm on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

Nobel laureate Mo Yan takes swipe at critics in lecture

8 Dec 2012 - 9:17PM

Chinese writer and 2012 Nobel Literature Prize laureate speaks during the traditional Nobel lecture on Friday at the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Photo: Xinhua

My Take | Liu's fight is not Mo Yan's responsibility

8 Dec 2012 - 7:54AM

Chinese writers, Nobel winners call for Liu Xiaobo's release

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.

29 Aug 2013 - 4:13AM

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Mo Yan

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.

Born

17 Feb 1955

Industry

Literature

Job Title

Author

last updated:

7 October, 2024