Mo Yan 莫言 has given his Nobel acceptance speech, but that doesn’t mean the debates about whether he deserved the award have stopped–or that older pieces haven’t been resurfacing.

A good deal of the debate focuses on the contrast between Mo Yan and Liu Xiaobo 刘晓波, the imprisoned critic who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Larry Siems and Jeffrey Yang (my editor at New Directions) make the case in “China’s Nobels” that while Liu is “is serving an 11-year sentence for ‘inciting subversion of state power’ in his writings” (while his wife is under house arrest), Mo Yan “has done little to jeopardize his status as one of the country’s most honored writers.” Yang is the translator of Liu’s poems assembled in June Fourth Elegies 念念六四, which has just been noted as one of Poets.org’s Notable Books of 2012. Yang and Siems do note that despite the difference between the two Nobels, their stories do converge: “Mo Yan, who had previously pleaded ignorance of his countryman’s case, told reporters that he hoped that Mr. Liu ‘can achieve his freedom as soon as possible’ and that he should be free to research his ‘politics and social system.'” Another editor of a recent Liu Xiaobo publication in English, however, Perry Link, editor of No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems of Liu Xiaobo, is less impressed: in “Does This Writer Deserve the Nobel Prize?” Link speculates, “Was Mo Yan’s ‘in good health’ phrase something that Chinese authorities had supplied to him, perhaps to prepare the way in international opinion for Liu Xiaobo’s ‘seeking medical treatment abroad’?”

In his Nobel speech, Mo Yan says, “I would like you to find the patience to read my books” 我希望你们能耐心地读一下我的书. Many commentators have read the speech, such as Chad Post at Three Percent, or Mark McDonald, who notices “‘Garlands and Mud’ for New Nobel Laureate from China,” or Adam Minter, whose “Mo Yan’s Nobel: Parable of a Patsy?” looks at the controversy both outside of China and in, but they don’t seem to notice that one of the stories Mo Yan tells in his lecture about an empty chair–

More than thirty years ago, when I was in the army, I was in my office reading one evening when an elderly officer opened the door and came in. He glanced down at the seat in front of me and muttered, “Hm, where is everyone?” I stood up and said in a loud voice, “Are you saying I’m no one?” The old fellow’s ears turned red from embarrassment, and he walked out. For a long time after that I was proud about what I consider a gutsy performance. Years later, that pride turned to intense qualms of conscience.

三十多年前，我还在部队工作。有一天晚上，我在办公室看书，有一位老长官推门进来，看了一眼我对面的位置，自言自语道：“噢，没有人？”我随即站起来，高声说：“难道我不是人吗？”那位老长官被我顶得面红耳赤，尴尬而退。为此事，我洋洋得意了许久，以为自己是个英勇的斗士，但事过多年后，我却为此深感内疚。

–seems to invoke the empty chair of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace prize two years ago.

Nor do many commentators seem to have read his books very closely. Andrea Lingenfelter, who has, though, says in her review of his forthcoming novel Pow! (translated, as always, by Howard Goldblatt) that it, “like the bulk of Mo Yan’s other novels, is a social and political critique”; interestingly, when I first caught her review online I remember it being less patient with criticisms of Mo Yan’s politics. Perhaps she was convinced by Link’s article, or Mo Yan’s defense of censorship.

As for his remarks on censorship, under the headline “Censorship is a must, says China’s Nobel winner,” the Guardian reports that he “defended censorship as something as necessary as airport security checks.” This, unsurprisingly, has gathered lots of commentary: Publishing Perspectives asks, “is it?” and Canada’s Globe & Mail says “that’s just wrong.” Salman Rushdie concludes Mo Yan is “a patsy of the régime,” while Pankaj Mishra says Rushdie “should pause before condemning Mo Yan.” But look at what he said in Chinese:

我反感所有的检查。我去大使馆办签证，他们也要检查。我坐飞机出海关，他们也要检查，甚至要解下腰带，拖鞋检查。但是我想这些检查是必要的，我从来没有赞 美过新闻检查这种制度，但是我也认为新闻检查在世界上每个国家都是存在的。但是这种检查的尺度，检查的方式不一样。如果没有新闻检查，这个人就可以在报纸 上或者是电视上攻击其他人，诽谤其他人。这个我想在任何一个国家都是一样的。但是我希望所有新闻检查应该有最高准则：只要不违背事实真相的都不应该检查， 违背了事实真相造谣和诬蔑的都应该受到检查。

The word he uses is jiancha, usually translated as “check,” either as a verb or a noun, rather than “censorship,” which my dictionary tells me would be shencha 审查. Jiancha is, of course, related to security checks, which should help explain his comparison. And as I read it, he doesn’t say that checks should exist but that they do exist. I would give a rough translation of the passage as:

I’m disgusted with checks of all kinds. When I go to the embassy for a visa, I get checked. When I take an airplane and go through customs, I get checked, even have to take off my belt and shoes. But I figure these checks must be necessary, and while I’ve never praised the system of checks on the news, I believe that checks on the news must exist in every country in the world. But measuring checks like this, the method of checking is different. If there were no checks on the news, somebody could go off in the newspapers or on TV and attack someone, or slander someone. I imagine it’s the same in any country. But I would hope all checks on the news adhered to the highest principle: as long as it doesn’t violate the truth it shouldn’t be checked, but rumormongering and defamation that violates the truth should be put under check.

In a related point, Mo Yan was cited in a Time Magazine feature two years ago:

Mo Yan is adamant that he never worries about censorship when choosing what to write about. “There are certain restrictions on writing in every country,” he says, adding that the inability to attack some topics head on is actually an advantage. Such limitations make a writer “conform to the aesthetics of literature,” Mo Yan argues. “One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety. A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel.”

Finally for the commentary, Charles Laughlin argues, in “What Mo Yan’s Detractors Get Wrong” (an article that mentions Xi Chuan) that “when discussing the merits of Mo Yan’s receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, I think it is misleading for us to compare its validity to that of awarding the Peace Prize to Liu.”

Meanwhile, in Stockholm, people are running naked in protest or else flash-mobbing Red Sorghum style: