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Mo Yan

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Author

The Resume

    (February 17, 1955- )
    Born in Gaomi, China
    Birth name was Guan Moye
    Wrote 'Red Sorghum' (1986), 'The Republic of Wine' (1992), 'Big Breasts & Wide Hips' (1996), 'Pow!' (2003) and 'Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out' (2006)
    Won the Nobel Prize in Literature (2012)

Why he might be annoying:

    He defended China's censorship laws as necessary, comparing them to airport security measures.
    At the Frankfurt Bookfair (2009), he joined a government-ordered walkout of a session where two dissident Chinese writers appeared.
    He said that <1949>Mao Zedong's 'Yan'an Talks of Literature,' which demanded that writers place politics ahead of art, 'played a positive role.'
    He was criticized by Salmon Rushdie, among others, for refusing to sign a petition calling for the release of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

Why he might not be annoying:

    When he was eleven, he was forced to leave school and work as a cowherd during the Cultural Revolution.
    His breakthrough novel, 'Red Sorghum,' was denounced by Chinese authorities for defying sexual taboos and for depicting life under Japanese occupation in a way at odds with the official Communist line.
    He wrote 'Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out' in only 42 days.
    He frequently satirizes elements of Communist society in his works.
    His defenders noted that European and American writers were rarely criticized for taking equally apolitical stances.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 8 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying