China Nobel laureate releases new book

Chinese Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan released a new book Friday charting his experience receiving the award in Sweden last December, state media reported. The book, titled "Grand Ceremony", is his first to be published since he won the 2012 Nobel Prize, Xinhua news agency said. It was released at a national book fair. Mo, speaking at a ceremony on China's southern island of Hainan, said he wanted to give readers a "first-hand" glimpse into his greatest achievement, the report said. "The new book also shows my great eagerness to return to my desk to write my next book," he was quoted as saying. The author, born Guan Moye, whose pen name means "not speak", won the Nobel in October for what judges called his "hallucinatory realism". His works cover some of the darkest periods of China's recent history, and are often infused with politics and a black, cynical humour. Though he has won praise from literary critics, Chinese dissidents have attacked him as a Communist stooge. But Mo, a member of the Communist Party, said in an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel earlier this year that he writes "on behalf of the people, not the party".