novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and especially by folk oral literature. His creation combines all of these inspirations into one of the most distinctive voices in world literature. Mo Yan, who himself reads foreign authors in translation, strongly advocates the reading of world literature. At a speech to open the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, he discussed Goethe's idea of "world literature", stating that "literature can overcome the barriers that separate countries and nations". Style Mo Yan's works are epic historical novels characterized by hallucinatory realism and containing elements of black humor. Mo Yan's language is distinguished by his imaginative use of colour expressions. A major theme in Mo Yan's works is the constancy of human greed and corruption, despite the influence of ideology. Using dazzling, complex, and often graphically violent images, he sets many of his stories near his hometown, Northeast Gaomi Township in Shandong province. Mo Yan says he realised that he could make "[my] family, [the] people I'm familiar with, the villagers..." his characters after reading William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. He satirizes the genre of socialist realism by placing workers and bureaucrats into absurd situations. Mo Yan's writing is characterised by the blurring of distinctions between "past and present, dead and living, as well as good and bad". Mo Yan appears in his novels as a semi-autobiographical character who retells and modifies the author's other stories. His female characters often fail to observe traditional gender roles, such as the mother of the Shangguan family in Big Breasts & Wide Hips, who, failing to bear her husband any sons, instead is an adulterer, becoming pregnant with girls by a Swedish missionary and a Japanese soldier, among others. Male power is also portrayed cynically in Big Breasts & Wide Hips, and there is only one male hero in the novel. List of works Mo Yan has written 11 novels, and several novellas and short story collections. This is a complete list of Mo Yan's works published as a collection in 2012 in China (after Mo Yan received the Nobel Prize). Novels 《红高粱家族》 Red Sorghum (1986) 《天堂蒜薹之歌》 The Garlic Ballads (1988) 《十三步》 Thirteen Steps (1988) 《食草家族》 The Herbivorous Family (1993) 《酒国》 The Republic of Wine: A Novel (1993) 《丰乳肥臀》 Big Breasts & Wide Hips (1995) 《红树林》 Red Forest (1999) 《檀香刑》 Sandalwood Death (2001) 《四十一炮》 Pow! (2003) 《生死疲劳》 Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (2006) 《蛙》