As Nobel Literature Prize-winner Mo Yan draws criticism – including from Ai Weiwei – for being a government shill, Brendan O'Kane puts Mo's political profile in perspective:
T.S. Eliot was a stone-cold anti-semite. Ezra Pound was a fascist-sympathizer who spent the end of WWII in a cage. Roald Dahl was mean to just about everybody. If we’re willing to accept The Waste Land and the Cantos and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as the works of flawed men, men who were subject to all of the limitations of their condition, then it seems grossly unfair to condemn Mo Yan for the lesser sin of keeping his head down.
The fact of the matter is that there are many excellent Chinese authors who are not banned or in jail. They choose to work within the confines of officially acceptable discourse, pushing at the boundaries wherever they can, because the alternatives are banning, or jail, or at best an honorary professorship in Berlin and the lonely irrelevance of the exile. The people insinuating that Mo and other CWA members are lightweights incapable of writing lasting or eternal literature seem to be saying that such privations are a prerequisite for literary legitimacy — for Chinese authors, at least.
On Friday, Mo Yan said he hopes imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy activist Liu Xiaobo "can achieve his freedom as soon as possible." Anthony Tao reflects on the statement:
Liu has been serving an 11-year sentence since 2009 for subversion of state power. The government would rather pretend he — and to a lesser extent, 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Gao Xingjian — did not exist. Even if Mo Yan never bluntly criticizes the government, at least he’s doing the next best thing: restoring the people’s memory of these banished notables of contemporary China.
Yu Jie sums up Liu's career as a democracy activist. Meanwhile, China Digital Times publishes the latest guidance to journalists from China's propaganda bureau:
To all websites nationwide: In light of Mo Yan winning theNobel prize for literature, monitoring of microblogs, forums, blogs and similar key points must be strengthened. Be firm in removing all comments which disgrace the Party and the government, defame cultural work, mention Nobel laureates Liu Xiaobo and Gao Xingjian and associated harmful material. Without exception, block users from posting for ten days if their writing contains malicious details. Reinforce on-duty staff during the weekend and prioritize this management task.
Reporters Without Borders just released the above video – a haunting glimpse of Liu's wife, Liu Xia, under house arrest, where she's been since Liu was awarded in Nobel in 2010.
The Dish 