Mo Yan has been awarded the Nobel prize for literature, becoming the first Chinese author to do so, in the process. His work has been praised for its 'hallucinatory realism,' reports Reuters.

Mo – whose real name is Guan Moye, and uses the pseudonym, Mo Yan, which means “don’t speak” - grew up in Gaomi in Shandong province in the northeast of the China. His parents were farmers, which provides the theme for a lot of his folk-style prose. His work is primarily set in his native country. “He has such a damn unique way of writing. If you read half a page of Mo Yan you immediately recognise it as him," said Peter Englund, head of the Academy. "He writes about the peasantry, about life in the countryside, about people struggling to survive, struggling for their dignity, sometimes winning but most of the time losing," Englund continued, according to The Guardian. "The basis for his books was laid when, as a child, he listened to folktales. The description magical realism has been used about him, but I think that is belittling him – this isn't something he's picked up from Gabriel García Márquez, but something which is very much his own. With the supernatural going in to the ordinary, he's an extremely original narrator."

Asian writers dominated the favourites list for the prize, which is worth $1m, with Japanese author Haruki Murakami narrowly missing out on the literary gong. "He was at home with his dad. He said he was overjoyed and terrified," Englund told Swedish television.