NY Review of Books: Does This Writer Deserve the Prize? by Perry Link
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/dec/06/mo-yan-nobel-prize/
Mo Yan has written panoramic novels covering much of twentieth-century Chinese history. “Rewriting history” has been a fashion in Chinese fiction since the 1990s; it holds great interest for readers who are still struggling to confront the question of “what happened?” during and after the country’s Maoist spasm. For writers inside the system, a dilemma arises in how to treat episodes like the Great Leap famine (1959–1962), in which 30 million or more people starved to death, or the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1970), which took the lives of another two or three million and poisoned the national spirit with a cynicism and distrust so deep that even today it has not fully recovered. Today’s Communist leaders, worried that their power could suffer by association with these Maoist disasters, declare the topics “sensitive” and largely off-limits for state-sponsored writers. But a writer doing a panorama cannot omit them, either. What to do?
Mo Yan’s solution (and he is not alone here) has been to invoke a kind of daft hilarity when treating “sensitive” events.
Comments
I am started to be be fed up with that sort of articles although Perry Link has written interesting books. 1/ we speak about literature and not politics.All this comments do regret that Mo Yan does not object radically to the leading role of the Party and is not in jail! Bad luck.Perry Link could travel to China and give it a try! 2/sorry but none of the dissidents is a major writer: certainly not Liao Yiwu or Ma Jian not to spe
Bertrand Mialaret, December 10, 2012, 7:29p.m.
(sorry computer problem) or Ma Jian not to speak of Liu Xiaobo.Major Chinese writers living outside China are not dissidents ; lets speak of Gao Xingjian, Ha Jin, Yiyun Li and Qiu Xiaolong... Is it necessary for an American writer to be a critic of all social problems in the US...?Or to fight against censorship which do exist in Europe and the USA...we suggest to those who are not convinced to approach an American publisher with for example a few pages describing an abortion...So why should it be a prerequisite for a Chinese writer? Mo Yan has never considered that he was a leading political figure, as he says, he is a story teller , one of the best and also a writer able under difficult circumstances to tackle the social problems of his country. He should have had the Nobel long ago and I hope that translations will prove this to the English speaking readers (16 books are translated into French...) Bertrand Mialaret www.mychinesebooks.com
Bertrand Mialaret, December 10, 2012, 7:59p.m.
It's certainly true that a writer need not be a political figure, but in the case of Mo Yan... so much of his writing is about history, and history is the province of politics, particularly in China. Then there's his official position in the Writer's Association -- he certainly hasn't avoided politics!
As always, the relevant comparison is to Yan Lianke: a writer who continues to exist with in the system, but has rejected compromise with the system, and whose reputation and career (not to mention health) have suffered as a result. His novel Four Books directly addresses the Great Famine of the Great Leap Forward, without resorting the "black humor" that Perry Link sees as a cop-out, a way of short-circuiting the outrage that you'd think is the only possible response to a man-made tragedy of that scale. Of course, Four Books can't be published in China, but neither is Yan in jail. So long as he's around, the argument that someone like Mo Yan "has no choice" will continue to look specious.
I thought his last paragraph was pretty judicious:
Incidentally, how odd that Perry Link doubts Mo Yan ever read Gabriel García Márquez! There are plenty of examples out there of Mo Yan discussing the details of Márquez's books.
Eric Abrahamsen, December 11, 2012, 2:53a.m.
Agree with you concerning Yan Lianke who, I hope, will be the next Chinese Nobel.
The compromise is different as explained by him (I have interviewed him twice): he has worked several years for the Writers Union and now is a professor in the People University in Beijing!
"Serve the people"is forbidden in China, the same goes for his great "Four Books" which has been translated into French some months ago (by Sylvie Gentil). He comments that the "Dream of Ding village" (recently translated by Cindy Carter) has been heavily self censored with no positive result...
Other books: "Days, months, years" obtained the Lu Xun prize and more surprizing "Lenin Kisses" had the Lao She prize!
Where I agree with you is that he was not allowed to attend the Francfurt Book Fair contrary to Mo Yan. Positive for him is that he did not have to remain seated (as Mo Yan did) when Tie Ning (the head of the writer's union) declared that censorship did not exist in China.
By the way I do not understand why Mo Yan had to comment in such a way on censorship during his recent press conference...there is probably a deal somewhere... Bertrand Mialaret www.mychinesebooks.com
Bertrand Mialaret, December 11, 2012, 9:30a.m.
The problem with this article is that it is basically a character hit piece and there is next to no discussion of Mo Yan's writing itself. And when Link does get around to discussing his writing, it is such a simplistic, one-dimensional view of literature that is almost insulting. I certainly expect more from someone who is supposed to be a leading authority on modern Chinese literature. It is as if the success or failure of a Chinese writer hinges on their ability to cash in on what is politically valuable at the moment. If we give Link the benefit of the doubt, this is a scathing indictment of contemporary Chinese literature as a whole, but that doesn't seem to be what he means.
Jeff, December 11, 2012, 2:20p.m.
I heard Dai Qing on Swedish radio the other day. Her criticism of Mo Yan's writing was (basically): He doesn't write the truth about peasants' lives - my academic friends and I have studied peasants and found that their lives are also very beautiful. And they don't have lots of sex or think dirty thoughts, like Mo Yan claims.
Laugh or cry?
Anna GC, December 11, 2012, 10:27p.m.
I heard Dai Qing on Swedish radio the other day. Her criticism of Mo Yan's writing was (basically): He doesn't write the truth about peasants' lives - my academic friends and I have studied peasants and found that their lives are also very beautiful. And they don't have lots of sex or think dirty thoughts, like Mo Yan claims.
Laugh or cry?
Anna GC, December 11, 2012, 10:27p.m.
This article by Li Jie 李颉 for the New York Times Chinese edition takes the same general attitude toward Mo Yan's work -- it presents a distorted, backward, hyper-sexualized, gluteally-fixated picture of Chinese rural life that is praised in the West because it deliberately caters to Western prejudices about China. The writer also trashes Howard Goldblatt for his part in papering over Mo Yan's most vulgar and ugly aspects, and says he possesses "a first-rate commercial mind, second-rate English translation skills, and third-rate Chinese reading comprehension."
jdmartinsen, December 12, 2012, 2:58a.m.
I was just considering whether to post that link -- if you want to talk about character assassination, Li Jie's article is exhibit number one. He reaches truly impressive heights of condescension in that piece, and at the same time seems weirdly deaf to literary concerns -- his set of criteria for judgment doesn't appear to include "it's good because it gives us pleasure to read".
Eric Abrahamsen, December 12, 2012, 3:25a.m.
The accusations of hyper-sexualisation are so interesting. Where's all the sex, I wonder? I guess I'm too Scandinavian to even notice ...
Anna GC, December 12, 2012, 7:28a.m.
hesht, March 4, 2014, 12:51p.m.