2001 Flamingo trade paperback, 8th printing. Gao Xingjian (Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather). In 1983, Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer and faced imminent death.But six weeks later, a second examination revealed there was no cancer-he had won "a second reprieve from death."

Soul Mountain

Literature & Fiction

XINGJIAN, Gao

Contemporary

Flamingo

"Painting starts where words fail or are inadequate in expressing what one wants to express." -- Gao Xingjian, Harvard University Gazette
In December 2000, Gao Xingjian became the first Chinese-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In addition to having produced an impressive body of work in several genres -- fiction, plays, and essays -- this prolific artist has also distinguished himself as a painter.
A collection of more than a hundred paintings, Return to Painting was first published in France for a major exhibition of his work in Avignon. The paintings -- India ink on rice paper -- span the artist's career from the 1960s until the present day. This book also includes an important essay by Gao, who is considered an artistic innovator in his native China, both in the visual arts and in literature.

Return to Painting

Arts & Photography

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Harper-perennial

One Man's Bible

New York: Harper Collins, 2002

Novelist, playwright, essayist, and short-story writer Gao Xingjian is that rare breed of artist able to express himself with equal grace in almost any form of literature. In 2000 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of his astonishing talents. The collection Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather offers this author's own selection and arrangement of his shorter fiction.
Written between 1983 and 1990, these beautifully translated stories take as their themes the fragility of love and life, and the haunting power of memory. In "The Temple" the narrator's acute and mysterious anxiety overshadows the "delirious happiness" of an outing with his new wife on their honeymoon. In "The Cramp" a man narrowly escapes drowning in the sea, only to find that no one even noticed his absence. In "The Accident" a bus hits a cyclist and, as in stop-action film, the chaotic aftermath gives way to a calm, ordinary street corner with no trace of the previous drama. In the title story the narrator attempts to "unburden myself of homesickness" only to find himself lost in a labyrinth of childhood memories. Everywhere in this collection are powerful psychological portraits of characters whose unarticulated hopes and fears betray the never-ending presence of the past in their present lives.
Gao Xingjian has shown a mastery of the epic form in his novels Soul Mountain and One Man's Bible. In Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, he brings the same passion and precision to the short story.

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather: Stories

Harper

These six stories by Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian transport the reader to moments where the fragility of love and life, and the haunting power of memory, are beautifully unveiled. In "The Temple," the narrator's acute and mysterious anxiety overshadows the delirious happiness of an outing with his new wife on their honeymoon. In "The Cramp," a man narrowly escapes drowning in the sea, only to find that no one even noticed his absence. In the title story, the narrator attempts to relieve his homesickness only to find that he is lost in a labyrinth of childhood memories. Everywhere in this collection are powerful psychological portraits of characters whose unarticulated hopes and fears betray the never-ending presence of the past in their present lives.

Essays & Correspondence

One Man's Bible is a fictionalized account of Gao Xingjian's life under the Chinese Communist regime. Daily life is riddled with paranoia and fear, and government propaganda turns citizens against one another. It is a place where a single sentence spoken ten years earlier can make one an enemy of the state.
But One Man's Bible is also a profound meditation on the essence of writing, on exile, on the effects of political oppression on the human spirit, and on how the human spirit can triumph.

United States

One Man's Bible is the second novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Gao Xingjian to appear in English. Following on the heels of his highly praised Soul Mountain, this later work is as candid as the first, and written with the same grace and beauty.
In a Hong Kong hotel room in 1996, Gao Xingjian's lover, Marguerite, stirs up his memories of childhood and early adult life under the shadow of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Gao has been living in self-imposed exile in France and has traveled to this Western-influenced Chinese city-state, so close to his homeland, for the staging of one of his plays.
What follows is a fictionalized account of Gao Xingjian's life under the Communist regime. Whether in "beehive" offices in Beijing or in isolated rural towns, daily life is riddled with paranoia and fear, as revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, reactionaries, counterreactionaries, and government propaganda turn citizens against one another. It is a place where a single sentence spoken ten years earlier can make one an enemy of the state. Gao evokes the spiritual torture of political and intellectual repression in graphic detail, including the heartbreaking betrayals he suffers in his relationships with women and men alike.One Man's Bible is a profound meditation on the essence of writing, on exile, on the effects of political oppression on the human spirit, and on how the human spirit can triumph.

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd

Eight brilliant essays from the Nobel Prize winning author of Soul Mountain. Constituting the kernel of Gao's thoughts on literature, translated by Sydney writer Mabel Lee.

Case for Literature

HARPERCOLLINS,AUSTRALIA

Features some of the most venerable names in publishing and makes available new explorations in writing and translation.

Ballade Nocturne (Volume 13) (Cahiers)

Dramas & Plays

Sylph Editions

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by XINGJIAN, Gao. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by XINGJIAN, Gao

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by XINGJIAN, Gao. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Soul Mountain

Return to Painting

One Man's Bible

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather: Stories

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather: Stories

One Man's Bible

One Man's Bible

Soul Mountain

Case for Literature

Ballade Nocturne (Volume 13) (Cahiers)