Mo Yan reacts during an interview with Xinhua reporters in his hometown Gaomi county, East China's Shandong province, Oct 12, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

Literature will never perish

"Literature is a rather desolate and lonely field throughout the world. It's not like films and other media that attracts a huge audience," Mo said.

Mo said he once read an article in which the writer was worried that there would not be any readers for novels after seeing people swarm to see Hollywood films in the 1930s.

Decades later, people still hold pessimistic views over literature. And now besides films, Internet and television drag more people away from literature, he said.

The writer, however, said "It (literature) will never perish." Literature is an art of language and its language beauty could not be replaced by the beauties of other arts, he said.

Even if you are reading again and again a master's book, you could still be touched by the beauty of the language and fates of the characters inside, he said. "I believe it's the beauty and charm of the language. And this will never perish."

Novel and film

Mo, whose real name is Guan Moye, has been known since the late 1980s for his novels such as Big Breasts and Wide Hips and Red Sorghum, which was later adapted into a film by director Zhang Yimou.

Mo said that if a novel is successfully adapted into a film, its influence and the author's popularity will be greatly boosted.

He said he based his observation on the example of the award-winning film Red Sorghum.

Prize money

Talking about how he is going to spend the prize money worth $1.2 million, Mo said he is planning to buy a house in Beijing.

"(I think) it's going to be a big one," he said with a big smile.

"But others told me that with the property price in some areas in the capital is hitting 50,000 yuan (nearly $8,000) per square meter, I can only afford a 120-square-meter apartment with the prize money."