Nobel laureate Mo Yan to write anti-graft novel

Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan said on Thursday that he is preparing to write a novel about the ills of corruption.

The well-known Chinese writer made the remarks in an interview for the website of the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

The novel is about people, he said, as "power, money and other temptations are tests to everyone" and "touchstones of every soul."

He said the book could have a "penetrating and profound" effect, as it would put people under the microscope of morals and laws, adding that China's problems should not be avoided in his work.

Mo has not yet started writing, saying he hopes to produce a deep and satisfactory piece, adding that it could be a novel or a play.

The 59-year-old has harshly criticized corruption and bureaucracy in his novels "Garlic Ballads" and "Republic of Wine."

Mo won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012 for his works, which "merge hallucinatory realism with folk tales, history and the contemporary," according to the Swedish Academy.