| Chapter : | Introduction: Hunger and Loneliness: Mo Yan’s Muses in Becoming a Writer |
|
|
his fictional works are examined in this study in juxtaposition to Mo Yan’s work because Mo Yan is primarily a writer of fiction.
Mo Yan, whose real name is Guan Moye (
), was born to a peasant family in Northeast Gaomi (
) Township of Shandong (
) Province, China, in 1955.7 His mother gave birth to more than half a dozen children, only four of whom survived. Mo Yan is the youngest; he has two older brothers and one older sister. Living in an extended family with fourteen members—his parents, grandparents, and his uncle’s family with four children—Mo Yan was somewhat neglected in his childhood. His father, who had completed four years of education, was considered an intellectual in his village and worked as an accountant until he retired in 1982. His mother was an illiterate housewife with a rural background who suffered from poor health, among other hardships.
Many factors played a role in the process of Mo Yan’s becoming a writer, not the least of which was the influence of his family members. His grandparents were ordinary peasants, not at all prototypes of the Granddad and Grandma characters, the all-conquering heroes in his debut novel, The Red Sorghum Family. Though illiterate, his grandfather was actually Mo Yan’s first teacher: he was a consummate storyteller. His tales revealed a world of fantasy to the young Mo Yan, who learned much about the unofficial history of China through anecdotes and stories about gods, spirits, foxes, and ghosts. Those stories later became a rich source of inspiration for Mo Yan’s writing, especially for the legendary stories or fairy tales about his hometown. Mo Yan’s grandmother, although not as unrestrained and daring as the character Grandma in The Red Sorghum Family, was a tough and capable woman who was highly respected by other women in the village. Guan Moxian (
), his oldest brother, also played an important role in Mo Yan’s development into a writer. Guan Moxian was always the pride of his village because he was its only high school student and later the only college student from his hometown. As a student in the Chinese department of Huadong (
) Normal University in Shanghai (
) at the beginning of the 1960s, Guan Moxian naturally became Mo Yan’s model. After a few years of elementary school education, however,