Humble roots form Nobel ideas
Mo Yan's rural upbringing has informed much of his literary oeuvre. In a recent interview with Gong Ziming, he discusses his journey and pursuit of inspiration.
As the winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in literature, Mo Yan has been hailed as a writer "who, with hallucinatory realism, merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". From his early novel, Red Sorghum, and the avant-garde works, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and Frog, to his latest traditional Chinese opera composition, Jin Yi, and a collection of poems, Qi Xing Yao Wo (Seven Stars Shine on Me), the works of Mo Yan depict a world that's both familiar and strange to us. In his literary creations, we see a world where animals, great and small, as well as people, display various personalities and drive a narrative.
His work is deeply rooted in the earth and is full of vigor and tenacity, and he talks about how his hometown, Dongbei township in Gaomi county in East China's Shandong province - which he describes as being "as large as a stamp" - has nourished his spiritual world.
