Another source of criticism was a perceived conflict of interest on the part of Göran Malmqvist, who is one of the members of the Swedish Academy. Malmqvist had translated several of Mo Yan's works into Swedish and published some through his own publishing house. Mo had also written a laudatory preface to one of Malmqvist's own books, and been a close friend of Malmqvist's wife for 15 years. The Nobel committee denied that this constituted a conflict of interest, and said that it would have been absurd for Malmqvist to recuse himself.