Chinese Nobel laureate travels to receive award

Mo Yan, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, will leave for Sweden with his wife and daughter on Wednesday to accept the award, said an official from the writer's hometown.

Shao Chunsheng, an official from the municipal administration of radio, film and television in the city of Gaomi in Shandong province, said the writer will take five outfits to the event.

"He may dress in a custom-made tuxedo prepared by his daughter while attending the award ceremony," said Shao, who will also accompany Mo to Sweden.

The Swedish Academy announced in Stockholm on Oct. 11 that Mo would receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Mo Yan, a pseudonym for Guan Moye, was born in 1955 and grew up in Gaomi.

"Mo Yan is an honest and low-key man, but he is ardent in his artistic pursuits," said Shao, adding that people can expect an "excellent speech" from Mo at the ceremony.

During Mo's youth, he witnessed rural upheaval during the great famine in the early 1960s, as well as the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976. Both periods served to inform and inspire his works.