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| The lovely characters above are “Mo Yan” (“don’t speak”) |
Back in 2012, novelist Mo Yan became the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Almost a decade later, Sima Nan, a television pundit, commentator and vlogger known for his nationalistic, anti-West stance, has proffered a theory about why. In his telling, the award was a Western effort to use the writer to attack the Chinese system and smear the motherland.
To make his case, Sima cited a speech in which Mo said: “I have a prejudice. I think literature should never be a tool for singing praises. Literature and art should expose darkness and reveal social injustice, which includes revealing the dark side of the human soul and what evil is made of.”
This is not the first time the pundit has attacked a big name. This time, Sima’s videos sparked online debate, as people argued about the role of literature and took the side of either Sima or Mo. Some of Sima’s 30 million online followers cheered him on, while Mo was called names. Read on…
