\'Garlands and Mud\' for Nobel Laureate from China

HONG KONG - The novelist Mo Yan will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature on Monday, a first for China, but after a particularly nasty backlash over his selection, it's understandable if some members of the Swedish Academy might be having some buyer's remorse.

Herta Müller, the Romanian-born writer who received the Nobel in 2009, told a Swedish newspaper that Mr. Mo's selection was “a catastrophe” because of his failure to speak out about ongoing state censorship in China. She called his award “incredibly upsetting.”

Liao Yiwu, 54, a Chinese author and dissident now living in Berlin, told Der Spiegel magazine about Mr. Mo's selection: “I am stunned. To me it is like a slap in the face.” He also derided Mr. Mo as “a state poet.†

Mr. Liao, who spent four years in a Chinese labor camp for anti-state writings, was asked if he knew Mr. Mo personally:

“Yes, he once visited Chengdu and we met there. After that there were a number of opportunities for us to meet but he always avoided me. He knows that he represents a superficial China, one that can seem very glossy. Whereas I stand for a grassroots China, its dregs, its dirt.”

Der Spiegel provided a counterpoint to Mr. Liao's critique, quoting Martin Walser, 85, a controversial German writer.

“I have never read another author who explains so much history in a present day plot,” Mr. Walser said. “It is literature, but is also informative about a country and its pasts. Mo Yan describes everything historical in full sensory detail, not as statements but as expressions.

“If one talks about China today,” he added, “then he should first read Mo Yan's novels, which, for me, reach the level of Faulkner.”

Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobels, told my colleagues Andrew Jacobs and Sarah Lyall that the academy was “awarding a literary prize, and it's on literary merit. The political fallouts and effects don't enter into it.”

“That doesn't mean we regard literature as unpolitical or that this year's prize winner isn't writing political literature,” Mr. Englund said, speaking of Mr. Mo. “You can open almost any one of his books and see it's very critical about many things to do with Chinese history and also contemporary China. But he's not a political dissident. I would say he is more a critic of the system, sitting within the system.”

The Nobel citation said Mr. Mo's “hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.”

Mr. Mo gave his Nobel lecture on Saturday in Stockholm as a prelude to the official ceremony on Monday. (The event includes the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, given this year to the European Union.) Mr. Mo titled his lecture “Storytellers,” and it appears on the Nobel Web site here in several languages. An excerpt:

The announcement of my Nobel Prize has led to controversy. At first I thought I was the target of the disputes, but over time I've come to realize that the real target was a person who had nothing to do with me.

Like someone watching a play in a theater, I observed the performances around me. I saw the winner of the prize both garlanded with flowers and besieged by stone-throwers and mudslingers.

I was afraid he would succumb to the assault, but he emerged from the garlands of flowers and the stones, a smile on his face; he wiped away mud and grime, stood calmly off to the side, and said to the crowd:

For a writer, the best way to speak is by writing. You will find everything I need to say in my works.

His remarks did not appease the dissident poet Ye Du, who was quoted in an article in The South China Morning Post: “In the last few days, he has defended the system of censorship . . . then in his lecture, he talks about storytelling - to use a Chinese expression, he is like a prostitute insisting her services are clean.”

“As far as an assessment of him,” Mr. Ye added, “in literature he has some merit, but as a living human being he is a dwarf.”

Global Times, a mass circulation newspaper affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, had a story on Monday headlined, “Mo Yan is wise to avoid talking politics.” An excerpt:

People should stop pressing Mo. He has already faced many questions he would have preferred to avoid.

Mo described himself as a storyteller during his speech at the Swedish Academy, while many expected him to talk about politics. This is a sad day for literature. It seems that literature is worth nothing if it does not serve a political master.

Mo is the real defender of literature. He refused to mix politics with literature. He has barely made any political claims and showed no strong tendency toward political rights.

Regarding the Mo-Nobel coverage, the Chinese media apparently received their protocols and talking points from Beijing, according to China Digital Times, which published this official memo that was issued after the Nobel award was announced in October:

State Council Information Office: To all Web sites nationwide: In light of Mo Yan winning the Nobel prize for literature, monitoring of microblogs, forums, blogs and similar key points must be strengthened. Be firm in removing all comments which disgrace the Party and the government, defame cultural work, mention Nobel laureates Liu Xiaobo and Gao Xingjian and associated harmful material. Without exception, block users from posting for ten days if their writing contains malicious details. Reinforce on-duty staff during the weekend and prioritize this management task.

The state-run newspaper China Daily seemed to be on message, offering an article on Monday that said Mr. Mo's Nobel haberdashery had become “a national topic of discussion.”

“Casual or formal? Traditional or Western? A Mao suit or tailcoat?” the paper asked, noting that “the country's masses wonder how a literature laureate will present himself on the world s tage in Sweden.”

The paper said a designer, Chen Bei, has put together a wardrobe for Mr. Mo and his family for the Nobel presentation. She said the design would be “essentially a Western cut with Chinese characteristics.”