Mo Yan: China’s reluctant Nobel laureate is a story written by Yuwen Wu about Guan Moye (known as Mo Yan). Mo Yan, born in February 1955, into a large peasant family, where he learned firsthand the pain of being hungry and lonely; and he used those experiences to write and became a Nobel Prize winner. A writer of both short and long stories and novels about the ordinary lives, culture and spirit in China, many people were certain he would be the winner. The day the winner was announced, the writer was hiding in his house to try and avoid the media. The media, local and foreign, found his house and camped outside ready to celebrate the winner. As Mo Yan explained to the media during a press conference, he was surprised but pleased he won.
Mo Yan, ready to continue with research and writing, would hope the media would not stay long; however, being able to openly celebrate, his country wanted to continue celebrating his success. His win has led to many things: have a literature museum and school named after him, a statue built, plans for a tourist route, and stamps, t-shirts, spirit bottles and many other products made with his name and image on them.
With the fame brought by winning the Nobel Prize, pressure and anxiety were present followed. Mo Yan is the second richest writer in China, but cannot decide if he is happy. He explains that he is under pressure and stress, so he is not sure how he can be happy, but having won the Nobel Prize, he cannot be unhappy. Having written stories of mostly of rural life being a ‘representative writer of his generation’ (Wu), he is highly regarded by other writers, as well as criticized for not taking on more social responsibilities.
Mo Yan wrote stories like Feng Menglong, about ordinary life. Mo Yan’s stories reflected lives of the ordinary people, while Feng Menglong stories were mostly about himself and the people in his life. Mo Yan is best known to Western readers for his 1987 novel Red Sorghum Clan, and Feng Menglong is best known for compiling work in the Ming Dynasty. In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer who can merge realism with folk tales, history and the contemporary to make them more interesting to the readers. Mo Yan writes about the Chinese culture today, and Feng Menglong wrote about Chinese culture during the Ming Dynasty. While Mo Yan is criticized for “not shouldering social responsibilities” (Wu), he says these people do not realize how much of a risk he was taking, he may not have made public responsibilities people expected of him, he did so through his writing. Feng Menglong was well known for his including social responsibilities in his work. Both of their writings have stories of how the culture historically changes over time. The two writers of different times used writing as an expressive way to talk about different parts of their lives, they are both wonderful writers who have made an impact in people’s lives using personal hardships to make their stories more memorable.