A book by winner of the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize Chinese author Mo Yan is photographed at the booth of Insel puplishers at the 64th Frankfurt Book Fair October 11, 2012. Yan, 'with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary,' the jury of the Royal Swedish Academy said. AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (CBS) -- Chinese writer Mo Yan won the 2012 Nobel prize for literature on Thursday (October 11) for works which the awarding committee said had qualities of "hallucinatory realism".
The prize is worth $1.2 million and was given by the Swedish Academy.
"The Nobel Prize in literature for 2012 is awarded to the Chinese writer Mo Yan, who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary," said the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Peter Englund.
The literature prize is the fourth of this year's crop of prizes, which were established in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel and awarded for the first time in 1901.