The Chinese Nobel complex and peacebuilding: Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan as case studies

This article offers a reappraisal of the Nobel Prize in Literature as a facilitator of
global mutual understanding, using the polarizing receptions of Nobel laureates
Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan as case studies. Instead of describing the relationship
between Chinese literary circles and the Prize as an irrational “Nobel complex”,
I contend that readers and writers of Chinese literature have identified various uses
in the Prize’s Eurocentric outline, particularly its emphasis on national allegory, or
what the Swedish Academy refers to as “witness literature”. I further argue that Gao
and Mo Yan strategically comply with Western demands for national allegories,
in order to preserve the forgotten voices from the Chinese Cultural Revolution
beyond national and cultural borders.