Video: A Tale of Two Nobels: Liu Xiaobo and Mo Yan

Hosted by the USC U.S.-China Institute, Professor Perry Link spoke on April 29, 2013, at the USC Leavey Library Auditorium.

What is the writer's place in China today?  What should it be? What responsibilities does a writer have to readers?  To the state?  To art?  To moral principle?  China's two recent Nobel Prize winners, Liu Xiaobo for peace, and Mo Yan for literature, offer some contrasting answers. 

Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波)	Mo Yan (莫言)

Perry Link is among the top American scholars of Chinese culture. He previously taught at UCLA and Princeton and now holds the Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines at the University of California, Riverside. He publishes on Chinese language, literature, and cultural history, and also writes and speaks on human rights in China. His most recent books are Liu Xiaobo’s Empty Chair: Chronicling the Reform Movement Beijing Fears Most (2011), An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics (2012), and the co-edited volume Restless China (2013). He's written, edited, and translated many other works and is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.

This video is also available on the USCI YouTube Channel.

Click here to view the event page.