Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller

Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller Comparative Cultural Studies Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Series Editor The Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies publishes single-authored and thematic collected volumes of new scholarship. Manuscripts are invited for publication in the series in fields of the study of culture, literature, the arts, media studies, communication studies, the history of ideas, etc., and related disciplines of the humanities and social sciences to the series editor via e- mail at <[email protected]>. Comparative cultural studies is a contextual approach in the study of culture in a global and intercultural context and work with a plurality of methods and approaches; the theoretical and methodological framework of comparative cultural studies is built on tenets borrowed from the disciplines of cultural studies and comparative literature and from a range of thought including literary and culture theory, (radical) constructivism, communication theories, and systems theories; in comparative cultural studies focus is on theory and method as well as application. For a detailed de- scription of the aims and scope of the series including the style guide of the series link to <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/seriespurdueccs>. Manuscripts submitted to the series are peer reviewed followed by the usual standards of editing, copy editing, marketing, and distribution. The series is affiliated with CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (ISSN 1481-4374), the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access quarterly published by Purdue University Press at <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb>. Volumes in the Purdue series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies include <http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/comparative-cultural-studies> Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang, Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller Elke Sturm-Trigonakis, Comparative Cultural Studies and the New Weltliteratur Lauren Rule Maxwell, Romantic Revisions in Novels from the Americas Liisa Steinby, Kundera and Modernity Text and Image in Modern European Culture, Ed. Natasha Grigorian, Thomas Baldwin, and Margaret Rigaud-Drayton Sheng-mei Ma, Asian Diaspora and East-West Modernity Irene Marques, Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies, Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Louise O. Vasvári Hui Zou, A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture Yi Zheng, From Burke and Wordsworth to the Modern Sublime in Chinese Literature Agata Anna Lisiak, Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe Representing Humanity in an Age of Terror, Ed. Sophia A. McClennen and Henry James Morello Michael Goddard, Gombrowicz, Polish Modernism, and the Subversion of Form Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia, and Cyberspace, Ed. Alexander C.Y. Huang and Charles S. Ross Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory, Ed. Galin Tihanov Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies, Ed. Louise O. Vasvári and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek Marko Juvan, History and Poetics of Intertextuality Thomas O. Beebee, Nation and Region in Modern American and European Fiction Paolo Bartoloni, On the Cultures of Exile, Translation, and Writing Justyna Sempruch, Fantasies of Gender and the Witch in Feminist Theory and Literature Kimberly Chabot Davis, Postmodern Texts and Emotional Audiences Philippe Codde, The Jewish American Novel Deborah Streifford Reisinger, Crime and Media in Contemporary France Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller Edited by Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana Copyright 2014 by Purdue University. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mo Yan in context : Nobel laureate and global storyteller / edited by Angelica Duran, Yuhan Huang. pages cm. -- (Comparative cultural studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-55753-681-5 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-343-5 (epdf) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-344-2 (epub) 1. Mo, Yan, 1955---Criticism and interpretation. I. Duran, Angelica, editor. II. Huang, Yuhan, 1988- editor. PL2886.O1684Z74 2014 895.13'52--dc23 2014012989 Cover image: Copyright release by Johannes Kolfhaus, Gymnasium Marienthal. Contents Acknowledgments vii Note ix Introduction to Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang 1 Part One Leaves A Mutually Rewarding yet Uneasy and Sometimes Fragile Relationship between Author and Translator Howard Goldblatt 23 The Censorship of Mo Yan's 天堂蒜薹之歌 (The Garlic Ballads) Thomas Chen 37 Representations of "China" and "Japan" in Mo Yan's, Hayashi's, and Naruse's Texts Noriko J. Horiguchi 51 Abortion in Faulkner's The Wild Palms and Mo Yan's 蛙 (Frog) Lanlan Du 63 Rural Chineseness, Mo Yan's Work, and World Literature Chengzhou He 77 Part Two Trunk The Realpolitik of Mo Yan's Fiction Sabina Knight 93 Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in a Cultural and Visual Context Yuhan Huang 107 Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in the Context of Religious and Chinese Literary Conventions Chi-ying Alice Wang 123 Religious Elements in Mo Yan's and Yan Lianke's Works Jinghui Wang 139 Mo Yan's Work and the Politics of Literary Humor Alexa Huang and Angelica Duran 153 Part Three Roots Cosmopolitanism and the Internationalization of Chinese Literature Ning Wang 167 Variation Study in Western and Chinese Comparative Literature Shunqing Cao and Miaomiao Wang 183 A Textbook Case of Comparative Cultural Studies Donald Mitchell and Angelica Duran 195 Epilogue Soul Searching in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Society Fenggang Yang 215 Selected Bibliography of and about Mo Yan's Work in Chinese and English Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang 221 Index 227 Acknowledgments The editors of Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang acknowledge gratefully the advice and support of Purdue University and Purdue University Press, especially James Mullins, dean of Purdue University Libraries; Charles Watkinson, director of Purdue University Press; and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, editor of the Purdue University Press series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Also deserving special acknowledgment include Keith Dickson, interim chair of the School of Languages and Cultures; John Duvall, editor of Purdue’s Modern Fiction Studies for direction and funding; Daniel Hsieh and Mark Tilton, consecutive directors of Purdue’s Asian Studies; Wei Hong, director of Purdue’s Confucius Institute; JoAnn Miller, associate dean of Interdisciplinary Programs; Charles S. Ross, director of Purdue’s Program in Comparative Litera- ture; Irwin Weiser, dean of the College of Liberal Arts; Fenggang Yang, director of the Purdue Center for Religion and Chinese Culture; and Michael Brzezinski, dean of Purdue’s International Program. A final acknowledgment must go to the Sino- American Symposium, an important series of scholarly gatherings since the 1980s that alternates between the P.R. of China and the U.S., with the most recent hosted at Purdue University in 2013. Angelica Duran dedicates her efforts for the publication of the volume to Sean O’Connor, her companion in discovering “all Earths King- domes and their Glory” (Milton, Paradise Lost 11.384). —Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang vii Note Readers of Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller should be aware of the style of the Purdue University Press’s series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies: the series uses no footnotes or endnotes. When used judiciously, footnotes or endnotes provide additional depth to the main discussion; however, in this volume—following the series’ style guide—the contributors’ texts are presented to be reader friendly for general readers and thus without footnotes or endnotes. At the same time, the editors of the volume provide depth in part through a substantial introduction and a selected bibliography, the former articulating part of the conver- sation in which the volume’s contributors are engaged, and the latter giving sign- posts for further interactions. With regard to languages, the series generally follows in-text the Western sequence of First Name Surname unless, for example in Asian languages, the names are established, historical, or aka names. This is done because Western academic publishing is not consistent with surnames in other languages, which, similar to East Asian languages, use the Surname First Name sequence. How- ever, some contributors to the volume have chosen the Chinese sequence in their texts, and two ways of in-text East Asian names reflect the contested nature of conventions as in East Asian names. Further, while the series style generally does not allow for titles with subtitles, the press decided to grant an exception, and thus the volume’s title is with a subtitle (articles in the volume are without subtitles). ix Introduction to Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang In The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value James F. English chronicles the enduring cultural entity of artistic prizes in terms of global economies, or systems, in which prizes act as cultural capital to be exchanged. While noting that prizes date "back at least to the Greek drama and arts competitions in the sixth century B.C.," English concentrates on "the modern

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