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.
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Famous quotes containing the word pen:
“As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.”
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“To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.”
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