Big Breasts & Wide Hips

[1] An English translation appeared in 1993. Dates of subsequent translations appear after the original publishing date.

[2] This was the film that launched director Zhang Yimou’s international career.

[3] Sylvia Li-chun Lin, tr., “My Three American Books,” World Literature Today 74, no. 3 (summer 2000): 476. This issue of WLT includes several essays on novels by Mo Yan.

[4] M. Thomas Inge, “Mo Yan Through Western Eyes,” World Literature Today 74, no. 3 (summer 2000): 504.

[5] Rong Cai, The Subject in Crisis in Contemporary Chinese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004), 159. Mo Yan further noted “that his purpose in creating the novel [was] to explore the essence of humanity, to glorify the mother, and to link maternity and earth in a symbolic representation.”

[6] David Der-wei Wang’s study deals superbly with this aspect of Mo Yan’s writing. See “The Literary World of Mo Yan,” WLT74, no. 3 (summer 2000): 487-94.

[7] Rong Gai, Subject in Crisis, 175.

[8] Li-Chun Lin, “My Three American Books,” 476. Mo Yan is also justifiably proud of his shorter fiction, a sampling of which has been published in English under the title Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh (New York: Arcade, 2001).

[9] We have collaborated on four novels, three from Taiwan and one, Alai’s Red Poppies, from China.