Mo Yan, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, in conversation with Song Fangjin, a screenwriter, TV director and novelist, during the launch of Mo Yan's new book at this year's Shanghai Book Fair.[Photo provided to China Daily]

　　The launch of Mo Yan's new book,Ren Na(Being Human), broke the ticketing system as more than 18,000 fans tried to make a reservation for the event on Aug 15.

　　It's been six years since the 71-year-old writer published his last book, and his latest is a collection of 81 tightly crafted short stories, the shortest consisting of no more than 71 Chinese characters.

　　The book launch at the Shanghai Exhibition Center was the highlight of this year's Shanghai Book Fair, as the writer had not attended the largest reading festival in the city for 14 years.

　　Within minutes of the event opening for reservations, enthusiastic fans crashed the booking platform connected with the publisher's account on the social media platform Xiaohongshu. The publisher, Dook Media Group, had to move it to Damai.cn, the leading ticketing platform for concerts, theater and sports events in China.

　　In all, more than 18,000 people competed for the 770 seats in the Friendship Auditorium at the Shanghai Exhibition Center, which were taken within seconds.

　　"I've been lucky," a senior middle school student who preferred to remain anonymous told China Daily.

　　"My hobby is collecting the autographs of renowned authors, but I only go for writers that I really like. Mo Yan is a great writer, and I also like how he interacts with readers on the Internet."