Wen Duan Honggang
The "Nobel Prize in Literature" was born in 1901 and is the most important award in the world of literature.
The selection mechanism of the Nobel Prize is very complex and demanding, and the nominees must have a certain degree of international popularity and influence, and their works must have a translation of more than one of the world's major languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Russian), and be well known to some readers.
However, even if a candidate is very strong, he or she cannot be self-nominated, and must be nominated by a qualified person and recognized by the Nobel Prize Committee before entering the competition. Those who are eligible to nominate can meet one of the following four conditions.
First, a member of the Swedish Academy of Letters, or a person from other countries who is equivalent to the level of a member of the Academy of Letters.
Second, the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Third, influential professors of literature or linguistics in universities in various countries.
Fourth, the chairmen of writers' associations of various countries.
In the history of more than 100 years of the Nobel Prize, Chinese writers Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Lao She, Lin Yutang and others have been nominated many times, and some have even been confirmed as the winners of that year, but unfortunately missed them for some reasons. After that, we looked forward to the stars and the moon, and finally saw the results in 2012.
In October 2012, Mr. Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for the first time for a Chinese writer, and the Nobel Committee gave the reason for the award: Mo Yan used hallucinatory realism to integrate folktales, history and modernity.
Mo Yan can win the Nobel Prize for many reasons, mainly because he has a sense of exploration, inherits the literary spirit of Mr. Lu Xun, and has the courage to tell the truth.
Of course, Mo Yan's ability to win the Nobel Prize is of course inseparable from a Japanese writer, as well as the strong recommendation and support of the Japanese literary and academic circles.
This person is the famous Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe, whose representative works include "Personal Experience", "The Football Team of the First Year of Wanyan", "Relatives of Life", "Somersault", "Farewell, My Book" and dozens of other novels, as well as short and medium story collections.
The strong autobiographical color and symbolism are the greatest characteristics of Kenzaburo Oe's novels.
In 1994, Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel Prize in Literature that year, becoming the second Japanese writer to win the prize after Yasunari Kawabata in 1968.
Kenzaburo Oe was born in 1935, Mo Yan was born in 1955, both were born in the countryside, they did not belong to the same era, and they also belonged to different countries and nationalities, but because they were born with the same background, their literary concepts were basically the same, so that there were many intersections in their lives.
Kenzaburo Oe, who is 20 years older than Mo Yan, showed special attention and support for this junior, and even had a hint of admiration, which was unexpected.
On December 7, 1994, Kenzaburo Oe stood on the podium of the Nobel Prize in Literature and delivered an enthusiastic speech entitled "My Ambiguous Japan".
The speech was sprinkled with nearly 10,000 words, including the following paragraph: Soon after, these systems combined me with Kim Ji Ha in South Korea and Mo Yan in China. The basis of this union is a hint of something that has always existed in the land of Asia – a sense of déjà vu that has existed since ancient times. Of course, I am not talking about Asia, which is favored as an emerging economic power, but an Asia of enduring poverty and chaos. In my opinion, the cosmopolitan nature of literature should first be established in this concrete connection. I participated in a hunger strike to fight for the political freedom of one of Korea's leading poets. Now, I'm concerned about the fate of some of China's best novelists.
At this time, Mo Yan was only 39 years old, and he had already published his masterpiece novella "Transparent Carrot", as well as "Red Sorghum Family", "Song of Heavenly Garlic", "Thirteen Steps", "Herbivorous Family", "Wine Country" and other long stories.
Kenzaburo Oe hadn't met this junior writer at this time, but he had already read many of Mo Yan's works, and was deeply attracted to it, and began to pay attention to Mo Yan. Taking the opportunity to receive the award and give a speech, he introduced Mo Yan to the world.
In a later speech, Kenzaburo Oe even said: If I want to choose the Nobel Prize winner in literature, I will choose Mo Yan.
It can be seen that in Kenzaburo Oe's heart, Mo Yan is a very important writer.
In fact, at this time, Mo Yan already had a certain reputation in the world, and his fame came from a movie.
In February 1988, Mo Yan's feature-length debut "Red Sorghum" was adapted into a film of the same name and won the "Golden Bear Award" at the Berlin Film Festival. Because the "Golden Bear Award" is the highest honor of the international A-category film festival, and "Red Sorghum" is the first Chinese film to win the award, Mo Yan has been specially concerned by some people in the world literary and artistic circles since then.
Perhaps because he cherished Mo Yan and intended to cultivate this potential writer, Kenzaburo Oe has been able to nominate himself as a Nobel Prize winner since he won the Nobel Prize, and has spared no effort to recommend Mo Yan to Mr. Westerberg, an academician of the Swedish Academy of Letters, many times, and praised Mo Yan and his works.
On the Chinese New Year's Eve (February 11, 2002), Kenzaburo Oe was invited by a Japanese TV station program "21st Century Pioneer" to interview Mo Yan in Gaomi, Shandong. In order to find out what kind of regional environment and humanistic concepts Mo Yan wrote many shocking novels, Kenzaburo Oe specially ate dumplings with Mo Yan for Chinese New Year's Eve, and slept on the earthen kang of Mo Yan's old house at night, and talked with Mo Yan all night, which made Mo Yan very moved. After getting to know each other, the two have become friends ever since.
From September 8 to 15, 2006, Kenzaburo Oe visited China, and the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences organized and held a special seminar on Oe literature. In his speech, Mo Yan sincerely expressed his admiration for Kenzaburo Oe's diligent creation, believing that Kenzaburo Oe's continuous creative strength comes from the indelible conscience of intellectuals, as well as the responsibility and courage of "the only one who escaped from the report".
Kenzaburo Oe, as the protagonist of this time, gave a speech on the theme of "Hope Begins with Despair", and Mo Yan invited many friends from the literary world to come to the speech to cheer.
So far, the relationship between the two has gone further, becoming close friends, and the interaction has become more and more frequent.
At a later lecture, Kenzaburo Oe vowed that if the next Asian writer won the Nobel Prize in Literature, it would be Mo Yan. He even compared Mo Yan to Lu Xun on many public occasions.
In December 2009, Mo Yan's full-length "Frog" was published, and in May 2011, "Frog" was translated by the famous Japanese scholar Tomio Yoshida and published by Japan's Chuo Ko Lun Shinsha, with Kenzaburo Oe's recommendation on the cover, the closest writer to the Nobel Prize in Asia. Under the recommendation of Kenzaburo Oe, a wave of "Mo Yan fever" was immediately set off in the Japanese literary circles, making Mo Yan the favorite contemporary Chinese writer of Japanese readers.
Sure enough, on October 11, 2012, Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel "Frog", which seemed to be accidental but was actually inevitable.
In fact, Mo Yan himself is also very fond of Japanese literature, and he once said something like this: I have boldly borrowed and learned techniques from Japanese literature, such as the works of Natsume Soseki, Kawabata Yasunari, Tanizaki Junichiro, Mishima Yukio and other Japanese writers, all of which have had a positive, even enlightening, impact on my creation.
Mo Yan has visited Japan more than ten times before and after, and the audience is full of seats every time he gives a speech, and his popularity is very high.
It is undeniable that it is the long-term recognition and support of Mo Yan from the Japanese literary circles, academic circles, and readers that has enhanced Mo Yan's influence in the international arena, which has helped him win the award.
The promoters of Mo Yan's works in Western countries are the American translator Ge Haowen and the Swedish translator Chen Anna, who are the biggest promoters of Mo Yan's Nobel Prize.
As for why Japanese readers like Mo Yan's works, a sentence from the famous Japanese writer Chino Yuseko may be able to solve our questions. He commented on Mo Yan's "Breast and Fat Buttocks" and said: In the story, due to natural and man-made disasters one after another, the image of the Japanese army does not look evil. As a Japanese, reading the literature of the Japanese army, for the first time, I felt comfortable and relaxed.