By Hua Ti (华提)
Issue 590, Oct 15, 2012Z
Opinion, page 16
Translated by Laura Lin
Original article: [Chinese]

It was on Oct 11 at 7pm that the good news from Stockholm was transmitted through to Beijing, bringing immense joy to many people in China - Mo Yan had won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Public opinion seems to agree that Mo Yan merits the award. Since his first literary efforts in the 1980s, his books have been both prolific and superlative. From Red Sorghum (红高粱), The Garlic Ballads (天堂蒜薹之歌), Big Breasts and Wide Hips (丰乳肥臀), Sandalwood Death (檀香刑) and Forty-one Guns (四十一炮), to Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (生死疲劳) and Frog (蛙), he has contemplated the fate of Chinese farmers, writing with a vivid imagination and in bold strokes.

Mo Yan has mined the soul of the Chinese people.

Aside from his novels, Mo Yan has also authored many essays and works of prose. We can say that Mo Yan's literary achievements have been some of the richest of the lush harvest of Chinese literature that has been reaped over the past three decades.

However, before and since the announcement of his winning the Nobel prize, there has been no lack of criticism and questioning. Prior to the news, some critics said that rumors that he would win were "shameless hype" because Mo Yan's works were simply not good enough to deserve the prize.

Such criteria for qualification are based on the grounds that former winners have usually  been politically liberal. On the contrary, in their view, not only does Mo Yan lack the spirit of social criticism, but the fact he is the vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association would in itself reduce the value of his winning the award.

After he had won the prize, Mo Yan was criticized even more directly for rarely speaking out about public issues; and his victory was labeled "somewhat weak" (有些疲软). One well-known public intellectual even went as far as saying categorically, on China’s Twitter-like Weibo microblogging platform, that future Nobels will be devalued by this year's choice.

In a pluralistic society, different voices have the right to exist and this is valuable.  I naturally respect the rights of all people to make their remarks. However, I also have to point out that some of the comments that have been made about Mo Yan are equally worthy of discussion.

What I regret is that some criticisms are made too hastily. Not only will this not help in understanding the facts, but we should also reflect on the values and psychology that lead to these assumptions being made.

As a matter of fact, Mo Yan is certainly not someone who is unconcerned by real social and political issues. The fact that he won this award is precisely a demonstration of the victory of realist literature. The Nobel Committee described Mo Yan as an author "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".

However, those who have read his books can tell you that this historical style is but the outer shell of his novels. The real soul of his works is the persistent concern for reality.

Against the Rot

In 1987, the local government of a Shandong township refused to buy the garlic crop from the local farmers. Attacks by local ruffians also depressed the price of the crop and the garlic was left to rot in the fields. The farmers took to the streets and rioted in front of the county government. Mo Yan wrote the book The Garlic Ballads based on this true story and completed the more than 200,000 character novel within 35 days. He was motivated by a real passion.

Since then, his pen has never stopped demonstrating a true concern for reality. In 2008, he wrote the novel Frog, which reveals the harm that China's family planning policy has caused to ordinary Chinese people. We can even say that among well-established Chinese authors, Mo Yan is one of the few to continue to confront the dismal life of the general population. Commentators who criticize him as not caring for reality or as flattering authority are simply ignorant of the facts.

In particular, Mo Yan's writing stresses the unambiguous social role of literature. Mo Yan recently said that "In such an era, literature carries a huge responsibility, that is, to save the world and salvage humankind. With our works, we must tell the rich and the powerful who have obtained their wealth and power through improper means that they have done wrong and that they will not be blessed by the Gods. We ought to tell those hypocritical politicians that so-called state interests are not paramount. What is truly paramount are the long-term interests of the human being."

These remarks cannot possibly be spoken more plainly than this. The reason I quote it at length here is to remind commentators that before one evaluates a writer, at a minimum, one should carefully read his works. Criticizing freely while relying merely on a few abstract concepts is extremely irresponsible.

A view of the statements regarding Mo Yan's award shows that in our society, some social critics have to, to some extent, adjust their own mentality and values.

Criticism of a society and a system should be on the grounds that one hopes that both can be improved.

We must avoid the spread of a psychology of hatred or go so far as to flatly deny that this society has indeed progressed to some extent.

It also must be noted that in any society, labor has its divisions. One cannot ask a writer to be a writer, fighter and saint all at the same time.

As a writer, Mo Yan has already done enough. Let us congratulate him on his award and the honor it bestows upon all Chinese literature.

News in English via World Crunch (link)