Chinese Nobel winner’s novel set to be adapted into Spanish play

A 2006 novel by Chinese Nobel Laureate Mo Yan, “Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out”, is set to be adapted into a play in the Spanish language.

Mo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012, signed an agreement Tuesday for the ChileChina Cultural Institute founded in 1952 by Pablo Neruda and Salvador Allende to adapt his work in Spanish at a ceremony organized by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Chile in Beijing.

“I am really happy to sign this agreement,” said the author, adding he felt certain the adaptation would be “an excellent work” for the enjoyment of Chilean and Latin American audiences.

The novel narrates the journey of goodnatured landowner Nao Ximen, who despite his generous nature and friendships with peasants is executed and his lands redistributed following the 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution.

However, a year later Nao is repeatedly reincarnated in the form of different animals living on his former lands, until he is finally reborn as a poor construction worker.

His journey continues for 50 years until 2000, set against the backdrop of upheavals in the country including the Great Leap Forward and the subsequent famine, and the Cultural Revolution.

The work shows the changing and complex history of China over the last few decades, Mo said, also stressing that Chinese and Chilean people “are very close” despite their geographical distance.

Center director Juan Carlos Ramirez said the signing was the beginning of “a new era” in cultural cooperation between the two countries, adding that “Chile will be the platform to carry Mo Yan’s work to other Spanishspeaking countries”.

Describing Mo as one of the giants of world literature, Chilean Ambassador to China Jorge Heine said that few things brought people close together as literature does, and that his country, “a land of poets”, was very aware of that fact.