Mo Yan wins the Nobel Prize in Literature

Chinese author's "hallucinatory realism" is rewarded.

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to the Chinese novelist Mo Yan. The Prize committee commended Mo’s “hallucinatory realism”, which “merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”. Several of Mo’s novels have been translated into English, including Red Sorghum (also adapted for the cinema), The Garlic Ballads and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.

Pre-prize rumours suggested the recipient this year might be Canadian short story writer Alice Munro, but for the fifth year running, the jury has ignored anglophone writers.