Mo Yan, the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, said he is not sure about whether he is happy after winning the prize.

In an interview with China Central Television broadcast on Sunday night, Mo said "I don't know," when a reporter asked if he was happy.

"Happiness means a healthy body and a total absence of mental burdens, but now I'm under high pressure and bothered by worries. Can I say that I'm happy?" he said.

"But if I say I'm not happy, people will consider that I'm striking a pose. How could you be unhappy after winning the Nobel Prize?"

Mo, born into a farmers' family in East China's Shandong province, won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which is worth $1.2 million, on Oct 11 for his "hallucinatory realism" which merges "folk tales, history and the contemporary".

He is the first Chinese citizen to win the prize.

The award sparked strong interest about contemporary Chinese literature among the public, and his books have been flying off the shelves in many bookstores across the country.