Mo Yan received the Nobel Prize for Literature 2012

The Jury of the Nonino Prize presided by V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Laureate, and composed by Adonis, John Banville, Ulderico Bernardi, Peter Brook, Luca Cendali, Antonio Damasio, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, James Lovelock, Claudio Magris, Norman Manea, Morando Morandini, Edgar Morin and Ermanno Olmi with Giannola, Benito, Cristina, Antonella and Elisabetta Nonino, happy and deeply moved toasts MO YAN, Nobel Laureate for Literature 2012. Mo Yan was awarded to International Nonino Prize in 2005.

“What the Noninos’ Grappa and the red sorghum distillate of my home village have in common is the same heroic spirit with an extra touch of refinement and elegance.”
From “A Distillate made by women”.
Mo Yan
Beijing, June 2008

Once more the Nonino Prize anticipates the Nobel, as it already happened last year for the poet Tomas Tranströmer and, still earlier, for V.S. Naipaul and Rigoberta Menchù.

MO YAN International Nonino Prize 2005
Motivation: A powerful, very original writer who joins the rootedness in his ancient and very rich civilization with a violently and boldly modern writing, and with a strict and at the same time unbridled, unpredictable, wild and tender fantasy that tells us all the drama of China, of this immense crucible of the world, all the violence of contemporary history, war, horror and life with an extraordinary capacity of listening and expressing piety, sorrow and loneliness.
The prize will be delivered by Claudio Magris.