Göran Malmqvist is a member of one of the most influential literary bodies in the world, and a champion of Chinese literature, writes Janice Leung

When Gao Xingjian won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2000, Göran Malmqvist came under fire for not recusing himself in the awards process. Critics accused Malmqvist, a senior member of the selection panel, of a conflict of interest because he was a friend of the dissident Chinese writer and had translated many of his works.

A similar controversy emerged 12 years later when Mo Yan became the second Chinese author to win the prize.

“Actually, I met Mo Yan here for the first time in 1990, by this pond,” Malmqvist says, seated by a pool of koi at Chinese University where he gave a series of public lectures last month. “I’d only met him three times before he got the prize,” the Swede says, but “people said we were old buddies”. More.

See: South China Morning Post