After receiving the news, Mo Yan expressed his excitement at a news conference in his hometown of Gao-mi in east China’s Shandong Province.
He said, "It is really a big surprise for me to win the Nobel Prize in literature, for there are so many excellent writers both at home and abroad. And I feel very happy. Some people say the winning of the prize is a recognition of universal values by the western countries.
I understand those universal values as truth, kindness and beauty. And only when you feel and experience it, can you write good works that can both touch yourself and your readers."