Editing Mo Yan (section)

==Style==
Mo Yan's works are [[Epic (genre)|epic]] historical novels characterized by [[hallucinatory realism]] and containing elements of [[black humour]].<ref name="Huang" /> The Nobel Prize Committee which awarded him the 2012 Nobel Prize in literature described his hallucinatory realism as combining "folk tales, history, and the contemporary."<ref name=":Wang" />{{Rp|page=184}} His language is distinguished by his imaginative use of colour expressions.<ref name="auto" /> A major theme in Mo Yan's works is the constancy of human greed and corruption, despite the influence of ideology.<ref name="Inge" /> Using dazzling, complex, and often graphically violent images, he sets many of his stories near his hometown, Northeast Gaomi Township in Shandong province.

Mo Yan's works are also predominantly social commentary, and he is strongly influenced by the [[magical realism]] of [[Gabriel García Márquez]]<ref name=":Wang" />{{Rp|pages=184-185}} and the [[social realism]] of [[Lu Xun]].  Mo Yan says he realised that he could make "[my] family, [the] people I'm familiar with, the villagers" his characters after reading [[William Faulkner]]'s ''[[The Sound and the Fury]]''.<ref name="Leach" /> He satirizes the genre of [[socialist realism]] by placing workers and bureaucrats into absurd situations.<ref name="Huang" /> In terms of traditional Chinese literature, he is deeply inspired by the folklore-based classical epic novel ''[[Water Margin]]''.<ref name="remapping" /> He cites ''[[Journey to the West]]'' and ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber]]'' as formative influences.<ref name="Leach" /> Mo Yan's writing style has also been influenced by the [[Six Dynasties]], ''[[Chuanqi (short story and novella)|chuanqi]]'', notebook novels of the [[Ming dynasty|Ming]] and [[Qing dynasty|Qing]] dynasties and especially by folk oral literature. His creation combines all of these inspirations into one of the most distinctive voices in [[world literature]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goldblatt |first=Howard |date=2013-09-01 |title=Mo Yan in Translation: One Voice among Many |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/21514399.2013.11833989 |journal=Chinese Literature Today |volume=3 |issue=1–2 |pages=6–9 |doi=10.1080/21514399.2013.11833989 |issn=2151-4399 |s2cid=64496433|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Mo Yan's ability to convey traditionalist values inside of his mythical realism writing style in ''The Old Gun'' has allowed insight and view into the swift modernization of China. This short story by Mo Yan was an exemplary example of the [[Xungen movement]] Chinese literary movement and influenced many to turn back to traditional values. This movement portrayed the fear of loss of cultural identity due to the swift modernization of China in the 1980s.<ref name="Norton" /> Mo Yan reads foreign authors in translation and strongly advocates the reading of world literature.<ref name="World Literature and China in a Global Age" /> At a speech to open the 2009 [[Frankfurt Book Fair]], he discussed [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]'s idea of "world literature", stating that "literature can overcome the barriers that separate countries and nations".<ref name="A Writer Has a Nationality, but Literature Has No Boundary" />

Mo Yan's writing is characterised by the blurring of distinctions between "past and present, dead and living, as well as good and bad".<ref name="Chan" /> Mo Yan appears in his novels as a semi-autobiographical character who retells and modifies the author's other stories.<ref name="Williford" /> His female characters often fail to observe traditional [[gender role]]s, such as the mother of the Shangguan family in ''Big Breasts & Wide Hips'', who, failing to bear her husband any sons, instead is an adulterer, becoming pregnant with girls by a Swedish missionary and a Japanese soldier, among others. Male power is also portrayed cynically in ''Big Breasts & Wide Hips'', and there is only one male hero in the novel.<ref name="Chan" />

Mo Yan's masterpieces have been translated into English by translator [[Howard Goldblatt]]. Goldblatt has effectively transmitted [[Chinese culture]] to target audiences by using a [[Domestication and foreignization|domestication technique augmented with foreignization]].<ref name="auto" />