英闻天下——52 Mo-Mania across China

 　　This past year, Chinese writer Mo Yan became the first Chinese national to win a Nobel Prize in literature.

 
　　Since then, his books have been flying off the shelves in China.
 
　　As such, today's key word is "Mo-mania".
 
　　CRI's He Fei has more.
 
　　Chinese writer and 2012 Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan receives a bunch of flowers after his lecture at Swedish Academy in Stockholm, capital of Sweden on Dec. 7, 2012. [Photo: Xinhua]
 
　　"The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2012 is awarded to the Chinese writer, Mo Yan"
 
　　With this announcement on October 11, 2012, the name Mo Yan has become a household name here in China.
 
　　The Zhicheng Classic Bookstore, which is found on Taobao's T-mall site, sold around 15-hundred volumes of Mo Yan's latest novel "Frog" in just 6-hours after the announcement.
 
　　The book also jumped from 560th to number-14 on Amazon.cn within two days of Mo Yan winning the award.
 
　　The book has already earned him the Mao Dun Literature Prize, which is one of the most prestigious 1 literature prizes in China.
 
　　One day after the announcement, Mo Yan sat down to autograph 35-hundred books on the Shanghai leg of his national book tour.
 
　　"I'm not overwhelmingly entranced by today's number, as 3,500 doesn't excite me the way 35 could lead to my despair. A writer enjoys his or her increasing readership only if he or she can preserve his or her style. That should be the prerequisite 2."
 
　　While personally soft-spoken, Mo Yan's works often tend to hit his readers hard.
 
　　Liu Mengxi is the Director of Institute of Fine Arts in China.
 
　　"Mo Yan's novels reach the inside the flaws and pains of rural China. He touches on human nature, the toughness and the timidness of the transition process. His narration 3 is powerful."
 
　　Hunger, desire, and nature are elements that shaped Mo Yan's childhood, and subsequently, many of his characters.
 
　　Howard Goldbatt is one of those who translate Mo Yan's works.
 
　　"Is it structurally 4 good fiction? Maybe not. Is it tight? Is it organically pure? Is it logically pure? Hardly ever. Is it passionate 5? Does it have fire? Always."
 
　　"A Transparent 6 Carrot" is being added to the curriculum for senior high school students all over the country in the coming spring semester.
 
　　Published in 1985, the novella tells the story of the lives and inside world of ordinary Chinese people in the countryside.
 
　　Many view the book as a reflection of Mo Yan's hard and lonely youth.
 
　　Mo Yan's book "Pow!" is his first published in English after winning the Nobel Prize.
 
　　Mo Yan wrote this book in a first-person narrative 7.
 
　　"WISE MONK 8, where I come from people call children who boast and lie a lot 'Powboys', but every word in what I'm telling you is the unvarnished truth."
 
　　Howard Goldbatt worked on the translation for this latest Mo Yan work.
 
　　"This is an age when reality TV and other silly things that is supposedly honest and truthful 9 and real are capturing the public. We need more fiction; we need more truth from people like Mo Yan. Individual perceptions of the world of viewpoint that only he has was somehow represents everything we believe."
 
　　Given Mo Yan's fame following the Nobel Prize, there is little doubt "Pow!" will do a lot to help keep "Mo-mania" thriving here in China.
 
　　For CRI, I'm He Fei.