Mo Yan in Macau | Nobel laureate says keeping roots is secret to good literature

Mo Yan

For contemporary Chinese literature to step onto the world stage, Mo Yan, the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize in literature, suggested that today’s writers should explore the rich dynamics of China’s changing society, whilst seeking roots in their hometowns and in traditional Chinese culture.
Speaking to an audience of hundreds at the University of Macau Doctor Honoris Causa Forum yesterday, the renowned writer shared his views on the achievements of Chinese literature and its future.
“Today’s Chinese literature is not in difficulty or on the horns of a dilemma, but rather able to demonstrate a canvas with the country’s rich dynamics that other countries’ literary works cannot parallel,” he suggested.
“There are few countries like China that can be so diverse, so rapidly changing, and whose people have so complex mentality,” he explained. “There are many dramatic incidents being staged in our society each day; people’s thoughts and ideas were never so diverse.”
The author stressed that contemporary Chinese writers have faced dilemmas derived from people’s starvation and poverty, as well as “confusion that is caused by the tremendous impact on one’s fate from years and years’ of political movements in the past.”
Mo Yan recognized that although China’s contemporary literature is shining on the world literature map, whereas the question that today’s writers should ask is how to create “Chinese style novels” that not only satisfy international reading habits but also embody Chinese characteristics.
“When I started writing in the 1980s, I didn’t have the awareness of a ‘literary hometown.’ Instead, I did everything possible to come up with stories and search for novel ideas in the newspapers and documents everyday. Later I clearly realized that a writer must have his base in order to gain a foothold for his creation; it’s a place where he can link his literature creation closely with his hometown,” he said.
The author eventually found his literary hometown in a vast rural land in Shandong Province’s Gaomi County – where he grew up – and called it “Gaomi Northeast Town” in dozens of his works. “Some people say ‘Gaomi Northeast Town’ is my stage, which I completely admit to,” he said.
The Nobel laureate further explained that a writer should hold “an open and meanwhile conservative attitude” towards his hometown.
“Writing always starts from the life that we are most familiar with, such as our childhood memories and personal experiences. Many writers of the older generations and I myself have followed such a path step by step.”
“But to step up onto a global stage, we need to look beyond our hometown and constantly enrich it. That means transplanting things, stories and even sceneries from other places to your own [literary] hometown. Only through this way can a writer’s creation go on continuously,” stressed Mo.
“Nevertheless, our literature should still be rooted in the hometown. It’s the unchangeable soul,” he added.
When catering to a global readership, the Nobel laureate said that “writing for whom” is another question that Chinese writers have been debating.
“Which country’s readers are we writing for? Should we take into consideration the translators while writing?” he asked the audience, emphasizing that a writer should always form a personalized language and absorb nutrients from folk dialects.
“Avoiding the vivid expressions from folk dialects in exchange for avoiding translation problems for the literary translators is precisely the biggest ‘don’t’ in writing,” he added.
Besides keeping an open mindset and reading both classic and current foreign literary works, the author also suggested that China’s writers should seek their roots in traditional literature.
“For our contemporary literature to continue shining, we must completely inherit the literature achievements that were created by our ancestors, as if their influence is the blood flowing in our veins,” he stressed.

robert merton lecture on global practice of finance

Nobel laureate Robert C Merton also spoke at UM’s Doctor honoris causa Forum. The 1997 Nobel Prize winner in Economics gave a talk on Saturday that was titled “On the Role of the Science of Finance in the Global Practice of Finance: Past, Present and Future.” Mr Merton argued how, in his opinion, over the past four decades, financial innovation has been a central force generally improving the global financial system with considerable economic benefit.