Writer Mo Yan said reform allowed artists access to world literature

Chinese novelist and Nobel laureate Mo Yan said China's reform and opening-up helped his writing talents flourish and carved out a path to a vibrant era in literature, he told China Daily in an exclusive interview in Hong Kong on Friday.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up - a pivotal catalyst for China to become today's second largest economy.

"The policy also opened the door to Western classical literature and poems first entering China in the 1980s. These are things we hadn't read before," recounted Mo, 63.

"With our horizon widened in a flash, we had access to many literary classics to learn from and relate to, and this marked and set the foundation for literary advancement among mainland writers, including me," he said.

Mo said he pored over many translated tomes like Les Miserables by French novelist Victor Hugo, and War and Peace by Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who all conveyed a strong affection for their respective motherlands. Such devotion and respect for an individual's own nation moved Mo. "These just reveal a universal affection for each person's own country," he added.

The chance to read foreign literature helped shape the literary imagination shown in most of his later creations.

Now, Mo said he hopes his creations could create the same influence for writers worldwide. He added that a number of young writers from Japan and Vietnam praised his literature for deepening their zeal.

He encouraged youngsters to cultivate a habit of reading. In today's technological era, he suggested youngsters leaf through articles on their gadgets at leisure, and also devote their time to reading classical titles.

"By going over a novel with intricacies of plots and characters with various dispositions that mirror the real world, young people can have a better grasp of moral values and nurture better judgment," he said.

Mo came to Hong Kong to attend the Prize Recommendation Committee of the Lui Che Woo Prize, an international award founded by the city's businessman and philanthropist Lui Che-woo to promote world civilization. Mo will help select three laureates.

He hopes that Hong Kong will have a vibrant literary development, as it is forming closer ties with nearby cities under the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

This cooperation is creating a distinct environment that is bound to breed a great diversity of writers and new genres of literature, music and arts, he said.

Mo, once a peasant in Gaomi, Shandong province, was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2012.

honeytsang@chinadailyhk.com

(China Daily 04/28/2018 page4)