Chinese author Mo Yan (莫言) will visit Taiwan later this week to promote his new book, the Global Views Educational Foundation said on Monday.
It will be his first trip to Taiwan since he won the Nobel Prize last year.
Mo will attend a book launch on Sept. 21 at the Fo Guang Shan Taipei Vihara for his book Grand Ceremony, which documents his trip to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature and includes his speeches, interviews and diary entries, the foundation said.
The book also includes more than 60 photographs, many of which have not been published before, it said.
Mo will also give a speech on Sunday, about his dreams as a writer, at the second Hsing Yun World Humanities Forum in Greater Kaohsiung. He will then participate in a panel discussion with Global Views Monthly cofounder Charles Kao (高希均) and Master Hsing Yun (星雲法師), founder of the Fo Guang Shan International Buddhist Order and the Buddha’s Light International Association, one of the largest Buddhist organizations in the country.
Mo, whose given name is Guan Moye (管謨業), was described by the Swedish Academy, as someone “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.”
The 58-year-old is the first Chinese national to win the prize. Gao Xingjian (高行健), who was born in China, won the prize in 2000 after he had become a French citizen.
Known for his vivid characters and magical realism, Mo has published dozens of novels and short stories, which are often set in his hometown in Shandong Province.
He rose to fame with his 1987 novel Red Sorghum, which focuses on the struggles of peasants during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
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