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STOCKHOLM: Chinese writer Mo Yan was named the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature for the year 2012 on Thursday.
The Swedish Academy, which selects the winners of the prestigious award, praised Mo's ''hallucinatory realism'' saying that it ''merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.''
European authors had won four of the past five awards, with last year's prize going to Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer.
As with the other Nobel Prizes, the prize is worth eight million kronor, or about $1.2 million.
