China’s Nobel laureate visits Turkey

Chinese Nobel lauerate writer Mo Yan will visit Turkey’s historical and natural beauties as part of the ministry’s ‘100 Chinese Intellectuals’ project. AP photo

Chinese Nobel laureate writer Mo Yan is Turkey’s guest as part of the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s “100 Chinese Intellectuals” project.

As part of the project, which was initiated last year, leading Chinese names have been invited to Turkey to realize cultural exchanges between the two countries. According to a written statement from the ministry, he was expected to arrive in Turkey yesterday. A special program has been prepared for Mo Yan, who is often considered the “Kafka of China.”

His real name is Guan Moye, but he is better known by his pen name Mo Yan, best known to Western readers for his 1987 novel “Red Sorghum Clan,” of which the “Red Sorghum” and “Sorghum Wine” volumes were later adapted for the film “Red Sorghum.”

Winner of Nobel Prize in 2012

On Oct. 11 2012, the Swedish Academy announced that Mo Yan had received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work, in which “hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.”
 
Swedish Academy head Peter Englund praised Yam’s style at the time. “He has such a damn unique way of writing. If you read half a page of Mo Yan, you immediately recognize it as him,” Englund said.

Aged 57 at the time of the announcement, Mo Yan was the 109th recipient of the award and the first ever resident of mainland China to receive it.

Shan Zhiqiang, who is the editor-in-chief of Chinese Geography magazine, which sells over 1 million every month in the country, as well as renowned literary name of China Chen Huizhong and other Chinese literary names, are also visiting Turkey as part of the “100 Chinese Intellectuals” project.