Chinese Nobel Laureate Mo Yan's Short Stories

Session title: Chinese Nobel Laureate Mo Yan's Short Stories. Presenter:   Dr. Lei Zhang, Texas Woman's University.  Date and location: Wednesday,  March 12, 2014 from  7:00-8:30 p.m. at the Denton South Branch Library.  Series: Professor's Corner: A Literary Discussion Group.  Session description: Mo Yan, China's most critically acclaimed contemporary author, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012. Mo Yan, growing in extreme poverty in a peasant family in Shangdong province, received only elementary school education. In the preface to his collection of short stories, Shifu, You Will Do Anything for A Laugh, Mo Yan says hunger and loneliness were his muses for storytelling. Mo Yan, the pen name which means "don't speak," writes what he knows the best--human suffering and social injustice. Mo Yan is well-known for such daring novels as Red Sorghum, The Garlic Ballads, and The Republic of Wine. In this session of Professor's Corner, we will survey three of his short stories--"Soaring," "Shen Garden," and "Abandoned Child"--to examine how he combines satire, the supernatural, and the mundane to offer social critiques in an art form.  Background on presenter:  Dr. Zhang earned her doctorate at Texas Woman's University and now teaches there.  Her dissertation is titled "Old Adversaries, New Understanding: A Rhetorical Analysis of Chinese and American Narrative Templates."  Dr. Zhang has presented previously at Professor's Corner. Cost:  This program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. Coordinator: Fred Kamman, Denton Public Library; Fred.Kamman@cityofdenton.com;  940-349-8752.  Producer: Dr. Stephen Souris, Texas Woman's University; SSouris@twu.edu; 940-898-2343. Location of the South Branch Library: 3228 Teasley, Denton, TX  76210.  The South Branch Library is just south of the Teasley & Lillian Miller intersection.  "This program was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities."