Books of Mo Yan to hit Russian market next year

MOSCOW - Books of Chinese Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan would meet Russian readers next September, Alexander Shepetina, vice president of the Russian Union of Writers, said Friday.

Shepetina, who was attending the International Book Fair in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, told Itar-Tass news agency via phone that Mo's books would be introduced to Russia for the first time at the 26th Moscow International Book Fair slated for next September.

Currently, only excerpts of the Nobel Laureate's works were translated in Russian. The Russian Union of Writers was trying to approach owners of Mo's books and buy the rights for their publication in Russia, Shepetina said.

After signing contracts with the Chinese partners, Russian publishers would translate Mo's books and bring them to the Russian readers, Shepetina said, adding it would be "a great discovery for all of us."

Mo Yan, a pseudonym for Guan Moye, was born in 1955 and grew up in Gaomi in east China's Shandong Province.

In his writing, Mo draws on his youth and his native province, which are most apparent in his novel "Red Sorghum," later made into an award-winning film by director Zhang Yimou.

"Big Breasts and Wide Hips" and "Life and Death are Wearing Me Out" are also among his most famous works. His works have been translated and published in English, French, Swedish, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese.

In Mo's works, "hallucinatory realism merges with folk tales, history and the contemporary," according to the official Nobel citation.