CHINESE author Mo Yan today won the Nobel Literature Prize for writing that mixes folk tales, history and the contemporary, the Swedish Academy announced.

“Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition,” the Swedish Academy said.

Yan, whose real name is Guan Moye and was born in 1955, “with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary,” the jury said.

Mo Yan has published novels, short stories and essays on various topics, and despite his social criticism is seen in his homeland as one of the foremost contemporary authors, the Nobel committee noted.

In his writing Mo Yan draws on his youthful experiences and on settings in the province of his birth.

Last year, the literature prize went to Swedish poet Tomas Transtroemer.