China's Nobel dream fulfilled, but what next?

The Chinese waited a century for their Nobel literature prize dream to come true.

When novelist Mo Yan became the first Chinese national to win the top literature award on Thursday. He fulfilled a dream that was beyond the reach of an earlier generation of literary giants, including Lu Xun and Lin Yutang.

Many Chinese were overjoyed at the award -- news of Mo's Nobel prize was widely discussed among web users Thursday night and Friday, and hit headlines in almost all Chinese newspapers.

Many people, literary critics and readers alike, thought the prize was long overdue in the world's most populous country, which takes pride in its long history, unique language and culture, and numerous good writers.

Avid Mo readers took to social networking and microblogging websites to share their delight and recommending works.

New readers visited online bookstores, only to find his best-selling books were sold out.

Despite his longstanding fame, Mo, 57, was not necessarily among the most widely read writers in China. Many criticized his works as vulgar, dark and violent.

The Swedish Academy described Mo's works as having combined "hallucinatory realism" with Chinese folk tales, history and contemporary life.

"Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition", read the Academy's citation for the award.

CONTROVERSIAL BUT SOUL TOUCHING

Mo said he was "surprised and delighted" at the Nobel prize.

"It's quite a surprise. There are so many good writers nowadays and I'm probably at the end of the list," he said in an interview with Xinhua late Thursday in his home county of Gaomi in Shandong Province.

Gaomi is the cradle of Mo's literary creation and most of his novels and short stories are set in his hometown. Every once in a while, he would go home to spend some time with his father, who, in his 90s, is in good health.

Before his Nobel award, Mo was best known for his "Red Sorghum", a novella set in Gaomi county in 1939, during China's war against the invading Japanese.

In 1987, the story was made in a film, which, directed by Zhang Yimou, proved an even bigger success. It won the Golden Bear at Berlin film festival and was the first movie from the Chinese mainland to gain international fame.

A farmer's son who survived on tree bark and weeds, Mo only attended primary school.

He dropped out to herd cattle at 11. It was in 1966, the year the Cultural Revolution began that his family was defined as "rich middle-class peasants", close to "class enemy".

But inadequate school education was not a problem.

"At eight, he began reading huge volumes of books. When he was in primary school, his essays were always the best-written in class," said his brother Guan Moxin.

Mo, meaning "Do not speak", was a pen name and his real name was Guan Moye.

He became a published author in 1981, and throughout his three decades of writing, he was among China's most-watched writers.

Most of his works sparked controversy.

His award-winning novel "Big Breasts and Wide Hips" (1995) was criticized for its blatant display of eroticism. In this book, Mo based the protagonist on a mother, a strong matriarch whom critics compared to Ursula Buendia in "100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Marquez.

"Sandalwood Death", published in 2001, drew vehement criticism for its description of a gruesome capital punishment in China in the early 1900s.

In a more recent novel, "Frog", published in 2008, Mo reflected on China's family planning policy that began in the late 1970s and portrayed the life of a rural gynecologist who changed from midwife to abortionist.

His works often faced realities and openly discussed darkness and evil, which he said was an effort to "anatomize the society and human nature". "Writers should reach the most painful part deep in the human soul," he told Xinhua.

Many of his novels have been translated into foreign languages, English, French and Swedish included, and entered worldwide bookstores -- which has been key to his success in taking the top literature prize.

Before Mo, Chinese-born author Gao Xingjian won the prize in 2000. But Gao moved to France in 1987 and had taken French citizenship. Most of his works were created after he left China.

Mo, however, is fully Chinese. "My works are Chinese literature. They show the life of Chinese people as well as the country's unique culture and folk customs," he told reporters in his hometown.

DREAM FULFILLED, WHAT NEXT?

China's literary circle basked in glory Friday as writers and critics celebrated the long-awaited Nobel prize.

"Mo's Nobel award is a milestone indicating Chinese literature is accepted by international readers,"said Prof. Lin Shaohua with Ocean University of China, who is famous for translating Japanese author Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood into Chinese.

The prize is "particularly encouraging" for the country's young writers who feel low and marginalized in an increasingly materialistic and fast-paced society where people prefer browsing webpages to reading printed publications.

"These young writers will be convinced that to keep writing in China is not meaningless or ridiculous as some people thought," said Jiang Fangzhou, 23.

Jiang began writing at the age of seven, published her first book at nine and has released several more novels since.

"It's opened a new window on China. International publishers and reviewers will pay more attention to Chinese literature, and more works will be translated and introduced to international readers," she said.

Amid the jubilance are also calls for calmness.

"The award is more an honor for Mo Yan than a 'breakthrough' in Chinese literature. We should take it more matter-of-factly," said Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Beijing-based tabloid Global Times, in his microblog at Weibo.com Friday.

While many web users are expecting the award to boost writers' confidence and readers' enthusiasm in Chinese literature, critics fear such effect would be transient if no further efforts are made to encourage literary writing and translation.

"Translation remains a major barrier that keeps well-written Chinese works at bay," said noted literary critic Zhou Limin. "Western works are easily introduced to China and are favored by many Chinese readers even if they are not translated well enough."

Chinese literature, however, is not as easily accepted in the West. "Western readers are more pickly about what they read, and if it is not well translated, it would be out of the question to recommend Chinese books to them," he said.8 In China, translators are often underpaid, which worsens the situation, said Zhuang Zhixiang, president of Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Most of Mo Yan's books were translated by Chinese proficient foreigners, including U.S.-based scholar Howard Goldblatt who translated several of Mo's works into English and Anna Gustafsson Chen, a Swedish sinologist and literary translator from Chinese.Enditem