MCLC: Mo Yan, the state, and the Nobel (6)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: michel hockx <mh17 at soas.ac.uk>
Subject: Mo Yan, the state, and the Nobel (6)
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Personally I did not consider Didi Kirsten Tatlow's piece to be a
"tirade." Compared to most of what has appeared about Mo Yan and Chinese
literature in the media since Thursday, it seemed to me to be an honest
piece, written by a thoughtful correspondent who has been living in China
for many years and who is well aware of the different forces at work in
the country's cultural politics.

Having said that: I think the question raised at the end of Tatlow's piece
("Can great, lasting literature come from there? The Nobel committee
thinks so. Do you?") really has only one answer: Yes. Lasting literature
has been produced under oppressive regimes for centuries. I suppose the
most obvious example would be Shakespeare, who wrote at a time when
censorhips was rife in Britian, and whose works have outlasted just about
everybody. More to the point: there is overwhelming evidence that Mo Yan
and his works have been appreciated by readers all over the world for at
least two decades. In my own responses to journalists over the past few
days, I have repeatedly stated that he is "probably the most-translated
living China author" and also referred to the strong endorsements he has
received from fellow Nobel laureates such as Oe Kenzaburo. The list of
scholarly work done on Mo Yan, available on the MCLC Resource Center, also
shows that he has had a rich critical reception for decades. So yes, Mo
Yan has produced great, lasting literature while living and working in
China. 

I agree completely with Xiaobing Tang that the really interesting question
here is about the literary values of the Nobel committee. From their
perspective, it makes perfect sense to value Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan just
as highly in terms of their work. It is worth taking that perspective
seriously and trying to reconstruct the literary aesthetics on which it is
based. In my interview with China Daily a few days ago, I tried to make
this point but all references to Gao Xingjian were removed upon
publication. 

Michel Hockx
SOAS, London