My Anthem

Friday, October 12, 2012

China's First Nobel Laureatte for Literature -- MO YAN:)

Whenever I can, I'd catch CCTV's CULTURE EXPRESS at 6.30PM -- in a way Malaysian chinaman trying to do belated ketchUP of his ancestral roots. And don't anyone insinuate I'm ANY LESS MALAYSIAN BECAUSE OF THIS JOURNEY -- IF thou art wan who deems it dat way, hey, get the hear out of hell!

From english.cctv.cn: about 3hours ago, VIA GOOGLE ~~~~


Mo Yan elated at winning Nobel Prize

10-12-2012 13:35 BJT

Watch Video

Play Video
Mo Yan has talked about his work and his reaction to winning the prize, with reporters at a hotel in his hometown, Gaomi City, in east China’s Shandong Province.
Mo Yan said, "I was very surprised to win the prize because I’m not among the most senior of the authors shortlisted, both from home and abroad. And I feel very happy. Some say winning the prize is a recognition of universal values by western countries. I understand those universal values to be truth, kindness and beauty. Only when you feel and experience these things, can you write literature that touches you and your readers. The local art and culture of my hometown and the cultural events I’ve witnessed have all influenced my work. Inevitably, folk culture has significantly influenced my work and style of writing. I want to express my gratitude to all the friends who supported me, as well as those who criticized my work. They’ve all helped me learn and improve. "

Related stories


*****************************************


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



Nobel Prize recognizes more than just Chinese literature

10-12-2012 13:26 BJT
By Xinhua writer Cao Kai
BEIJING, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Author Mo Yan on Thursday became the first Chinese national to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, an honor seen as a landmark recognition of contemporary Chinese literature.
As soon as the Swedish Academy in Stockholm announced the award, numerous Chinese people voiced their excitement on the Internet. The news then dominated Chinese newspaper headlines on Friday.
Authors in China said the prize showed the country's contemporary literature has gained the world's attention, and it will be a great encouragement for Chinese writers.
Despite lack of acclaim for contemporary Chinese literature over the past three decades, Mo said there are many world-class works coming out of the country, partly because authors have learned a lot from their Western colleagues.
However, learning from Western literature does not mean mimicking. In the 1980s, Chinese writers were simply imitating peers abroad but soon gave it up when they found it fruitless.
"When a country's literature wants to gain a position on the world stage, it must have a distinctive style," Mo told an audience at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair.
He won the prestigious prize for his work merging folk tales, history and the contemporary with hallucinatory realism. His novels, including his most celebrated Red Sorghum and Big Breast and Wide Hips, have been translated into dozens of foreign languages.
In a country with a long history and great civilization, many Chinese writers have influenced generations of people both home and abroad through their masterpieces. It was a pity and pain for Chinese readers that the Nobel Prize in literature had never fallen on a Chinese national before.
Mo's success can also be seen as a sign that China is getting recognition from the rest of the world not just for its literature, but more broadly.
The country's opening up has provided ample room for Chinese literature to flourish since the 1980s. Compared to politically motivated literature before 1978, contemporary Chinese writers apply more retrospection to society.
"A writer should express criticism and indignation at the dark side of society and the ugliness of human nature," according to Mo. "Some may want to shout on the street, but we should tolerate those who hide in their rooms and use literature to voice their opinions."
Without China's opening up and reform policy, his ilk would not have flourished.
In recent years, China not only opened its arms to foreign literature, but also made an effort to introduce its writers to the outside world.
One of the major steps is that China's flagship literature magazine, People's Literature, launched an English version last November to boost the global impact of contemporary Chinese literature. Entitled "Pathlight," the first English issue included translations of 17 Chinese writers' works.
In fact, opening up and reform have benefited far more than literature. China has grown into the world's second-largest economy, lifted hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and become a major player in international affairs over the past three decades.
It has taken a development path different from the West, and that has also proven successful.
Granting the Nobel prize to a Chinese writer not only expands the Nobel Committee's influence to the world's most populous country, but also makes it possible for more people to read about China and its people; thus, they will see a real and more objective presentation of the country, instead of a mysterious and sometimes demonized China.
As the bestowal of the Nobel Prize shows recognition of China in the field of literature, the country's involvement in major world events will be indispensable, and it is not late to acknowledge this.

*****************************************************


Trying another perspective of media coverage, here's  Desi's working heART for ye, hey, ride me that cheque for 20million, K!:) OR :( depending on thy response -- No compulsion, I'm 100% democratik which maketh Desi tick, K!!!!!!!~~~~~

From world.time.com:~~~


CHINA

China Celebrates Author Mo Yan’s Nobel

The writer is not the first Chinese person to win a Nobel — think dissident Liu Xiaobo and the Peace Prize — but, with their sleight of hand, elated Beijing authorities are celebrating him as the first Chinese citizen to win the literature award
By AUSTIN RAMZY | @austinramzy | October 11,


Chinese writer Mo Yan smiles during an interview at his house in Beijing.
China Daily / Reuters
Chinese writer Mo Yan smiles during an interview at his house in Beijing
Mo Yan, the Chinese author of earthy but surreal novels including Red Sorghum and Big Breasts and Wide Hips, was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, making him the first China-based writer to win the award. The Nobel Committee described Mo Yan, 57, “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.”
The award will be widely celebrated in China, which despite taking up nearly a fifth of the world’s population has won a tiny number of Nobels and until now, none that were welcomed by the regime. Several Chinese have been honored with the prize after moving abroad, including Chinese-American physicists Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee and novelist Gao Xingjian, who is a French citizen. Two well-known critics of the Chinese government, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and Liu Xiaobo, the jailed literary critic and lead author of the pro-democracy manifesto Charter 08, have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
When Liu’s 2010 prize was announced international news channels in China went dead, his wife Liu Xia was placed under a tight form of house arrest from which she has yet to emerge, and China’s relations with Norway, which hosts the Peace Prize, fell into a lengthy deep freeze. But the news of Mo Yan’s prize was immediately acclaimed. The official Xinhua news service plastered a banner headline announcing the Nobel across its Web page, and Mo Yan quickly became the hottest topic on Sina Weibo, the Chinese microblog service. State-run broadcaster CCTV relayed the news during its widely viewed 7 p.m. broadcast minutes after the Swedish Nobel Committee made the announcement in Stockholm. The CCTV announcer called Mo Yan “the first writer of Chinese citizenship to win the Nobel Literature Prize.”
Mo Yan, whose real name is Guan Moye, was born in Gaomi in China’s eastern Shandong province, a township that has served as a setting for his novels — complex, sometimes violent rural dramas often set in the turbulent early years of the People’s Republic. He dropped out of school at age 12 during the Cultural Revolution, worked in a refinery and served in the People’s Liberation Army, first turning to fiction while he was still a soldier. While he has tackled sensitive subjects including China’s one-child policy, he is best known as a writer with a solid awareness of what he can and can’t get away with under China’s censorship regime. He once said he chose his pen name, which means “don’t speak,” to remind himself to not say too much. (One popular joke circulating on Thursday on Sina Weibo: “Who is the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature?” “Can’t Say.” “Come on! Tell me!” “Can’t Say.” “Why not? Tell me!” “Can’t Say.”) In a 2010 interview with TIME he said every country has restrictions on what it allows to be written, but that can be an advantage, as it forces writers to think of how to work around those limits. “One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety,” he said. “A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel.”
Tang Xiaobing, a professor of comparative literature at the University of Michigan, called Mo Yan “one of the greatest, most innovative writers in China today” and said his deep focus on a specific region was similar to the style of William Faulkner. Writing after the Nobel was awarded, Tang said it was significant that it “goes to a Chinese writer living and writing in China, a writer who is widely read and respected, whose work does not get attention simply because it is claimed to be dissident or oppositional.”
Some Chinese liberals have criticized him for his role as vice president of the state-approved Chinese Writers Association and for pulling out of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009 to protest the attendance of dissident environmental writer Dai Qing. Mo Yan was one of 100 artists who copied by hand a Mao Zedong speech from 1942 that outlined the role artists must play in developing a socialist state, which prompted criticism that he was endorsing authoritarianism. “The Nobel Literature Prize is a symbol of humanism and freedom of writing, but unfortunately we cannot see such qualities in Mo Yan,” said Wen Yunchao, a Hong Kong–based activist and blogger. “In one word, Mo Yan doesn’t deserve this prestigious honor.”
In a speech at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair he argued that authors could speak out against injustices while still hewing to the official line. “A writer should express criticism and indignation at the dark side of society and the ugliness of human nature, but we should not use one uniform expression,” he said, according to a report in the China Daily. “Some may want to shout on the street, but we should tolerate those who hide in their rooms and use literature to voice their opinions.”
— With reporting by Gu Yongqiang / Beijing


Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/10/11/china-celebrates-author-mo-yans-nobel/#ixzz295rKdyVf
2012 | 7
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)