'The basis for his books was laid when as a child he listened to folktales. 'He writes about the peasantry, about life in the countryside, about people struggling to survive, struggling for their dignity, sometimes winning but most of the time losing,' said permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Peter Englund, announcing the win. He published his first book in 1981, but found literary success in 1987 with Hong gaoliang jiazu (Red Sorghum), a novel that an internationally successful movie by director Zhang Yimou, set against the horrific events that unfolded as Japan invaded China in the 1930s. The cultural revolution forced him to leave school at 12, and he went to work in the fields, completing his education in the army. Mo Yan, at 9/1, 'definitely slipped under the radar', said the firm's spokesman Alex Donohue.īorn in 1955 to parents who were farmers, Mo Yan - a pseudonym for Guan Moye the pen name means 'don't speak' - grew up in Gaomi in Shandong province in north-eastern China.

With the Nobel going to a European seven times in the last decade, all evidence was pointing to a winner from outside Europe, and Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami emerged as the frontrunner at betting firm Ladbrokes. Over the past month the Chinese press has become increasingly vocal about the possibility of a Chinese writer taking the award, with commentors equating 'bagging the prize to Chinese literature gaining the world's recognition'.

The Nobel, worth eight million kronor, goes to the writer 'who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction', with previous winners including Samuel Beckett, Doris Lessing and, last year, the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. The win makes Mo Yan the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel in its 111-year history: although Gao Xingjian won in 2000, and was born in China, he is now a French citizen and although Pearl Buck took the prize in 1938, for 'her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces', she is an American author.

Frog by mo yan