Last week, Professor and literary critic Xie Youshun from Sun Yat-sen University, brought a lecture entitled “The values of Mo Yan’s novels and the Nobel Prize in Literature” at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). The lecture was hosted by Dean Chen Yuehong of School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Professor Xie Youshun is a PhD student-supervisor from the Department of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature at Sun Yat-sen University. He is also the vice president of the China Fiction Society, vice chairman of Guangdong Writers Association and vice president of Guangdong Literary and Artistic Critics Association. He has published more than ten books such as “Become a Novelist” and “Literature and its creation.” He has won awards such as the Feng Mu Literature Award and the Zhuang Zhongwen Literature prize.

Prof. Xie Youshun highly praised Mo Yan’s novels, believing that they fit the values of the Nobel Prize for Literature and therefore are worthy of the Nobel Prize. Xie Youshun put forward the thoughts award-winning works should have at least four characteristics. They should have a critical spirit, local reality, adherence to exploration of the art, and high quality writing.

Prof. Xie Youshun pointed out that Mo Yan became a famous writer because the literary kingdom he constructed formed an important symbol of contemporary China. Mo Yan’s unique novel style is coarse but full of impact. His diverse narrative style and character sense are different from other writers. In the view of Prof. Xie Youshun, Mo Yan’s novels have created more of a “wild” China.

“Among the many writers who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, he is relatively young. I think he has a very active creativity, but the award is not his ultimate goal. In the future, he will also write more amazing works.” Prof. Xie Youshun said he was looking forward to Mo Yan’s future works.

Subsequently, Prof. Xie Youshun had an intensive Q&A session with teachers and students on literary writing, reading, and other related issues.

Chen Yuehong stressed that first-class research universities must have first-class humanities education. As an essential subject part of educational research in SUSTech, high-level liberal arts education has been fully implemented by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Every two weeks, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences presents it’s “Humanities Distinguished Scholar” lecture series. This lecture is the 91st of this series.