The NYRB China Archive
10.03.24
China’s Iconoclast
from New York Review of Books
I Have No Enemies: The Life and Legacy of Liu Xiaobo by Perry Link, the leading Western chronicler of dissent in China, and a Chinese colleague who writes anonymously as Wu Dazhi is the definitive biography of the most famous dissident in the nearly...
Conversation
07.14.17
Liu Xiaobo, 1955-2017
When news this morning reached us that Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo had died, we invited all past contributors to the ChinaFile Conversation to reflect on his life and on his death. Liu died, still in state-custody, eight years into his 11-...
Conversation
12.21.16
Did Oslo Kowtow to Beijing?
In 2010, the Oslo-appointed Nobel Peace Prize committee bestowed the honor on imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Furious with the selection of Liu, a human rights advocate, who is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence on spurious...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.20.16Norway and China Restore Ties, 6 Years After Nobel Prize Dispute
New York Times
The news accompanied an unannounced visit to Beijing by the Norwegian foreign minister, Borge Brende, who met with Premier Li Keqiang
ChinaFile Recommends
10.22.15Nobel Renews Debate on Chinese Medicine
New York Times
As China basks in its first Nobel Prize in science, few places seem as elated, or bewildered, by the honor as the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.
Sinica Podcast
10.21.15
Tu Youyou and the Nobel Prize
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, hosts Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn, and David Moser speak with Christina Larson and Ian Johnson about Tu Youyou, the scientist who recently shared a Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of the anti-malaria compound...
Media
10.07.15
An International Victory, Forged in China’s Tumultuous Past
On October 5, a share of this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine went to 84-year-old Chinese pharmacologist Tu Youyou for her discovery, decades ago, of the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. Tu and her team made the discovery during the Cultural...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.07.15The Chinese Government Is Cranking Up the Nationalism After Its Nobel Win
Quartz
In a way, the Nobel honor is a double-whammy for the Chinese government’s nationalist agenda.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.05.15Youyou Tu: How Mao’s Challenge to Malaria Pioneer Led to Nobel Prize
Guardian
Tasked in 1969 with finding a cure for malaria, China’s first laureate in medicine looked to nature and traditional medicine.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.12.14Fidel Castro Wins China’s Alternative Peace Prize
Guardian
In line with past recipients, the ailing Castro did not come to Beijing to pick up his award and it was unclear whether he was aware of the honour. The prize, in the form of a gold statuette and certificate, was instead handed to a Cuban foreign...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.25.14Nobel Winner’s Frank Advice to China’s Leadership
New York Times
Nobel Prize-winning economist A. Michael Spence argues that the Chinese must move beyond low-wage exports and “generate a fair amount of demand domestically, or they’ll fail.”
The NYRB China Archive
11.07.13
How to Deal with the Chinese Police
from New York Review of Books
A casual visitor to China today does not get the impression of a police state. Life bustles along as people pursue work, fashion, sports, romance, amusement, and so on, without any sign of being under coercion. But the government spends tens of...
Conversation
06.11.13
What’s the Best Way to Advance Human Rights in the U.S.-China Relationship?
Nicholas Bequelin:The best way to advance human rights in the U.S.-China relationship is first and foremost to recognize that the engine of human rights progress in China today is the Chinese citizenry itself. Such progress is neither the product of...
Culture
05.09.13
“I Just Want to Write”
Whether or not I deserved the Nobel Prize, I already received it, and now it’s time to get back to my writing desk and produce a good work. I hear that the 2013 list of Nobel Prize nominees has been finalized. I hope that once the new laureate is...
Sinica Podcast
03.08.13
Mo Yan and the Nobel Prize
from Sinica Podcast
When Chinese author Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature last year, many critics were fast to pounce on his selection, accusing the committee of making a political choice that glossed over what many consider to be pervasive self-censorship in...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.01.13Mo Yan Grants First Interview Since Winning Nobel Prize
Beijing Cream
A look at the highlights from a Der Spiegel interview with Mo, covering Ai Weiwei’s and Liao Yiwu’s criticism of the author, his comments on the Cultural Revolution, and his relationship with the government.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.02.13A Meaty Tale, Carnivorous and Twisted
New York Times
Nobel laureate Mo Yan's latest novel to be issued in English, “Pow!,” is a red-toothed fantasia about meat production and meat consumption.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.13.12Why Salman Rushdie Should Pause Before Condemning Mo Yan
Guardian
Mo Yan, China's first Nobel laureate for literature, has been greeted withsome extraordinary hostility in the west. This week Salman Rushdie described him as a "patsy" for the Chinese government...
Culture
12.11.12
Sheng Keyi on Mo Yan: “Literature Supersedes Politics and Everything Else”
In a recent conversation at the Asia Society, novelist Sheng Keyi said she felt the critism of Mo Yan’s Nobel Prize was unjustified. The controversy, she said, arises from Mo Yan’s politics rather than his literature, “and I think to critique him on...
Culture
12.11.12Yu Jie: Awarding Mo Yan the Nobel Prize Was a “Huge Mistake”
Mo Yan accepted his Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm on December 10.The 57-year-old novelist often writes stories based on memories of his village childhood, and his work and his political views have triggered wide debate. In...
Out of School
12.11.12
What Mo Yan’s Detractors Get Wrong
When Chinese novelist Mo Yan accepted the Nobel Prize in Literature earlier this week, the relationship between literature and politics attracted much attention. The award is often given to writers who forcefully oppose political repression. When...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.09.12Mo Yan and the Hazards of Hollow Words
New Yorker
In Chinese, there are an impressive number of ways to describe saying nothing at all. When a person is determined to speak at length but not in depth, he can embark on a long jog of feihua—literally, wasted words—or perhaps pass the time at...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.06.12Perry Link: Does This Writer Deserve the Prize?
New York Review of Books
On October 11 Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2012 will go to the fifty-seven-year-old Chinese writer Guan Moye, better known as Mo Yan, a pen name that means “...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.06.12Nobel Literature Winner Skirts Support for Dissident
Wall Street Journal
Nobel literature prize winner Mo Yan dodged requests Thursday to repeat comments supportive of Chinese countryman and jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, and said censorship may be necessary to stop the dissemination of untrue rumors and insults but that...
The NYRB China Archive
12.06.12
Does This Writer Deserve the Prize?
from New York Review of Books
On October 11 Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2012 will go to the fifty-seven-year-old Chinese writer Guan Moye, better known as Mo Yan, a pen name that means “...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.05.12China Dismisses Nobel Demands for Liu's Release
Agence France-Presse
China rejected a call from 134 Nobel laureates for the release from prison of dissident 2010 Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.19.12The Headache of Mo Yan, China’s Nobel Prize Winner in Literature
Washington Post
Mo Yan had a tuxedo made for the December 10 prize gala in Stockholm and is studying the waltz, in case he's invited to dance.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.15.12Is Mo Yan a Stooge for the Chinese Government?
Rectified.name
Even before the Swedish Academy announced Mo Yan as the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize winner, the Chinese internet was abuzz with discussion of his work and his relationship with the Chinese government.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.12.12Mo Yan Calls for Liu Xiaobo’s Release
New York Times
Mo Yan, the new Nobel laureate who strenuously avoided antagonizing the Communist Party during much of his literary career, stepped into a political minefield on Friday by calling for the release of Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned writer and...
Media
10.11.12
Netizens React to Mo Yan’s Nobel Prize
Upon hearing the news that novelist Mo Yan was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature, a flurry of messages about the fifty-seven-year-old Shandong native circulated on weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, expressing decidedly mixed opinions...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.11.12Mo Yan and China's “Nobel Complex”
New Yorker
In awarding the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature to Mo Yan, the Swedish Academy has recognized one of China’s best-known writers, and also fulfilled one of the Chinese government’s most enduring pursuits: a politically tolerable Nobel laureate.&...
Features
10.11.12
Will Mo Yan’s Nobel Prize Finally Mean Better Book Sales Abroad?
Literature in translation in the United States has wide but shallow roots, making English language stars out of the likes of Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Haruki Murakami, but leaving most of China’s writers struggling to take hold. Now, veteran...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.11.12Nobel Prize to Novelist Mo Yan
New York Times
The Swedish Academy announced on Thursday that it had awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature to the Chinese author Mo Yan, the cultural high point of a week of accolades to scientists, writers and peacemakers.
The NYRB China Archive
02.08.12
He Told the Truth About China’s Tyranny
from New York Review of Books
Better than the assent of the crowd: The dissent of one brave man!—Sima Qian (145–90 BC)Records of the Grand HistorianTruth will set you free.—Gospel according to JohnThe economic rise of China now dominates the entire landscape of international...
Sinica Podcast
12.10.10
The Wikileaks Revelations, Part III
from Sinica Podcast
As Interpol deepens its investigation into Mr. Assange’s use of birth control and financial service companies feel the wrath of script-kiddies worldwide, our own crew of Internet vigilantes sifts through the remains of the Wikileaks data-dump in...
The NYRB China Archive
11.11.10A Hero of Our Time
from New York Review of Books
On October 8, Liu Xiaobo became the first Chinese to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and one of only three winners ever to receive it while in prison. The Oslo committee had already received a warning from Beijing not to give Liu the prize because he...