Synopses & Reviews
When Gao Xingjianand#160;was crowned Nobel Laureate in 2000, it was the first time in the hundred-year history of the Nobel Prize that this honor had been awarded to an author for a body of work written in Chinese. The same year, American readers embraced Mabel Leeand#8217;s translation of Gaoand#8217;s lyrical and autobiographical novel
Soul Mountain, making it a national bestseller. Gaoand#8217;s plays, novels, and short fiction have won the Chinese expatriate an international following and a place among the worldand#8217;s greatest living writers.
The bold and extraordinary essays in this volumeand#151;all beautifully translated by sinologist Mabel Leeand#151;include Gao's Nobel Lecture (and#147;The Case for Literatureand#8221;), and#147;Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth,and#8221; and#147;Cold Literature,and#8221; and#147;Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain,and#8221; and and#147;The Necessity of Loneliness,and#8221; as well as other essays.and#160;These essays embody an argument for literature as a universal human endeavor rather than one defined and limited by national boundaries. Gao believes in the need for the writer to stand apart from collective movements, regardless of whether these are engineered by political parties or driven by economic or other forces not related to literature. This collection presents Gao's innovative ideas on aesthetics, and it constitutes the very kernel of his thinking on literary creation.
Praise for Soul Mountain:
and#147;A brilliant sprawl of a novel that defies conventional notions of and#145;the selfand#8217; and and#145;literature.and#8217;and#8221;and#151;Washington Post
and#147;Startlingly poetic language . . . Bewitching narrative voices . . .One long immersion in buried strata of history and the psyche.and#8221;and#151;Boston Globe
and#147;Gaoand#8217;s wanderer . . . has found survival . . . in words. And ultimately, it is the miracle of those words that wins Nobels.and#8221;and#151;Los Angeles Times Book Review
Synopsis
The author of Soul Mountain, and China's only Nobel Laureate in Literature, offers provocative insights into the meaning and enduring importance of literary expression
When Gao Xingjian was crowned Nobel Laureate in 2000, it was the first time in the hundred-year history of the Nobel Prize that this honor had been awarded to an author for a body of work written in Chinese. The same year, American readers embraced Mabel Lee's translation of Gao's lyrical and autobiographical novel Soul Mountain, making it a national bestseller. Gao's plays, novels, and short fiction have won the Chinese expatriate an international following and a place among the world's greatest living writers. The bold and extraordinary essays in this volume--all beautifully translated by sinologist Mabel Lee--include Gao's Nobel Lecture ("The Case for Literature"), "Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth," "Cold Literature," "Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain," and "The Necessity of Loneliness," as well as other essays. These essays embody an argument for literature as a universal human endeavor rather than one defined and limited by national boundaries. Gao believes in the need for the writer to stand apart from collective movements, regardless of whether these are engineered by political parties or driven by economic or other forces not related to literature. This collectionpresents Gao's innovative ideas on aesthetics, and it constitutes the very kernel of his thinking on literary creation.
About the Author
Playwright, novelist, essayist, and painter Gao Xingjian ws born in 1940 in Jiangxi Province in eastern China. Choosing exile, he settled in Paris in 1987. In 1992, he was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mabel Leeand#8217;s many translations include Gao Xingjianand#8217;s novels Soul Mountain and One Manand#8217;s Bible and his short story collection Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather. She is an honorary associate in the School of Languages and Culture at the University of Sydney.