By JAMES D. WATTS JR. Scene Writer on Oct 11, 2012, at 4:46 PM Updated on 10/11 at 4:46 PM
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Mo Yan, the Chinese novelist, essayist, and short story writer who Thursday was named at the 2012 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, will have his recently translated 2004 novel, "Tanxiangxing (Sandalwood Death)," published in January by the University of Oklahoma Press.
The publication of this novel, translated by Howard Goldblatt, is the latest in a series of connections between the new Nobel laureate and OU.
In 2008, Yan was the first winner of the Newman Prize for Chinese Literatue, a $10,000 prize created by OU's Institute for U.S.-China Issues. Yan came to Norman in March 2009 to receive the prize.
OU’s international literary magazine, World Literature Today, featured Mo Yan in its July/August issue with various reflective essays on the writer and excerpts from Mo Yan's "Wolf" and "Inside Out," translated by Howard Goldblatt.
"Sandalwood Death" will be published as part of OU's Chinese Literature Today Book Series, established in 2011. The series focuses on English translations of critically acclaimed works of poetry, fiction and drama written by Chinese authors.
The novel is at once a love story and an unsparing critique of political corruption during the final years of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last imperial epoch.
According to Mo Yan’s Nobel biography, “through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition.”
Born as Guan Moye in 1955 in Gaomi, a town in the Shandong Province of northeastern China, Mo Yan was the son of farmers. He began his literature studies and writing career after joining the People’s Liberation Army in 1976. He adopted the pen name Mo Yan, meaning “Don’t Talk,” initially to adhere to a code of personal brevity expected in China. This name change, at first seen as culturally and politically rebellious, was used with his first short story in 1981 in a literary journal and with his breakthrough novella "Touming de hong luobo" in 1986.
Mo Yan is best known for his 1987 novel "Hong gaoliang jiazu," which was filmed the same year and translated in English as "Red Sorghum" in 1993. Mo Yan’s notable works include satirical novel "Tiantang suantai zhi ge" (1988, in English "The Garlic Ballads," 1995), satirical "Jiuguo" (1992, in English "The Republic of Wine," 2000) and "Shengsi pilao" (2006, in English "Life and Death are Wearing Me Out," 2008). His latest novel, "Wa" (2009), explores the repercussions of the nation’s single-child policy.
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