USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mo Yan bags the highest literary honour!

There was a very positive review of Ngugi Wa Thiongo's autobiography,
"Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir" (only in the print
edition of Dagens Nyheter) the last paragraph of which concluded that
it could be made compulsory reading in Swedish secondary schools, as
the insider version of the Mau-Mau against British colonialism. That
last sentence of the review gave me the premonition that Wa Thiong'o
was not going to get it this year either. Wa Thiongo's influence is
strongly ideological – about mother-tongue writing etc.

As far as African autobiographies go, the most profound one available
so far is Toyin Falola's " A Mouth Sweeter than Salt." and I look
forward to it being translated into Swedish, one of these days..

Chinua Achebe's recent attempts at drawing some attention to himself
does not seem to have done it either...

The Swedish Academy announced a few minutes past one on Tuesday, that
"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 was awarded to Mo Yan "who with
hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the
contemporary".

I thought that on that basis, perhaps Amos Tutuola too could have been
strongly deserving, even posthumously, of the Nobel Prize in
Literature.

Say what you will,the man of the moment is Mo Yan:

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=Mo+Yan&oq=Mo+Yan&gs_l=hp.12..0i3l3j0.3497.3497.0.5973.1.1.0.0.0.0.76.76.1.1.0.les%3Beaqth..0.0...1.2.J90eotrnAFY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=4c9f4bbd916d9831&bpcl=35277026&biw=986&bih=596

Of course there's the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Review
of Books etc – and there's some reactions here from the heartland of
the Swedish Academy who award the Nobel Prize in Literature :

In today's Dagen's Nyheter, no less than a dozen pages are devoted to
the implications of Mo Yan being awarded this year's highest literary
honour:

Björn Wiman: "The Swedish Academy has made Mo Yan an important pawn in
the Chinese regime's relations with the world"

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/bjorn-wiman-svenska-akademien-har-gjort-mo-yan-till-en-betydelsefull-bricka-i-de&prev=/search%3Fq%3DAkademien%2Bhar%2Bgjort%2BMo%2BYan%2Btill%2Ben%2Bbetydelsefull%2Bbricka%2Bi%2Bden%2BKinesiska%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D986%26bih%3D596%26prmd%3Dimvnso&sa=X&ei=-3B4UJy0C4Lm4QS6woDwCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQ7gEwAA

More reactions to this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature:

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.dn.se/Stories/nobelpriset-2012&prev=/search%3Fq%3DAkademien%2Bhar%2Bgjort%2BMo%2BYan%2Btill%2Ben%2Bbetydelsefull%2Bbricka%2Bi%2Bden%2BKinesiska%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D986%26bih%3D596%26prmd%3Dimvnso&sa=X&ei=-3B4UJy0C4Lm4QS6woDwCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQ7gEwAQ

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