2012 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Mo Yan. The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 11 October 2012.

The citation

The citation reads: "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".

The laureate

Mo Yan was born in 1956 in Gaomi, China.

Why it matters

Mo Yan, a pen name meaning "don't speak", is the author of novels including Red Sorghum. He is the first Chinese citizen living in China to receive the literature prize.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 million Swedish kronor. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.