Pen Name
"Mo Yan" — meaning "don't speak" in Chinese — is his pen name. In an interview with Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, he explains that name comes from a warning from his father and mother not to speak his mind while outside, because of China's revolutionary political situation from the 1950s, when he grew up. The pen name also relates to the subject matter of Mo Yan's writings, which reinterpret Chinese political and sexual history.
Read more about this topic: Mo Yan
Famous quotes containing the word pen:
“Here is a pen and here is a pencil,
Here’s a typewriter, here’s a stencil,
Here is a list of today’s appointments,
And all the flies in all the ointments,
The daily woes that a man endures—
Take them, George, they’re yours!”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)
“To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.”
—Max Beerbohm (1872–1956)