BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Mohammed Elshijh, an Egyptian doctoral candidate at Beijing Language and Cultural University, chose to study Chinese literature after receiving his bachelor's degree in 1999.
As countries with long, rich histories, China and Egypt have much in common, Elshijh said, adding that Mo Yan, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature, is also popular in his motherland.
"I have read Mo's novels such as 'Red Sorghum' and 'Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.' His books are full of the smells of the countryside and reflect the relationship between the land and farmers," Elshijh said.
On Oct. 11, Mo, 57, became the first Chinese national to win the top literary prize. He will attend the formal award ceremony on Dec. 10.
The Swedish Academy described Mo's works as having combined "hallucinatory realism" with Chinese folk tales, history and contemporary life.
"Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan 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," read the academy's citation for the award.
Elshijh said he felt fairly excited when he learned that Mo won the literary prize.
"Mo's winning of the prize is pushing Egypt to translate more of his works into Arabic," Elshijh said, adding that there is already an Arabic edition of "Red Sorghum," but Egypt's Ministry of Culture recently announced that it will translate another of Mo's works from Chinese to Arabic.
However, contemporary Chinese literature remains less influential than mainstream Western literature, Elshijh said.
Cheng Shu teaches advanced Chinese reading in the International Chinese Language and Culture Center of the Beijing-based Tsinghua University. She was surprised that many of her students, who were all from other countries, were following the news of Mo's award.
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