The controversy over awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature to PRC author Mo Yan has uncovered old and bitter debates about the relationship between politics and literature. However, Chinese society and contemporary Chinese literature have come a long way since the Cold War, when those debates first flared up, and the possibilities for Chinese literature today are unprecedented.
In an upcoming public lecture, East Asian scholar Charles A. Laughlin will explain how Mo Yan and his generation have fundamentally changed the relationship between literature and politics in China, helping create a broader space for creativity and more vigorous engagement with world literature than ever before.
