Gao Xingjian: books,
information,
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Books
of the Nobelprize winner here available!
And the Nobel Winner in
Literature is...? The long wait is over...the name has been announced!
Gao Xingjian was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature 2000 “for an œuvre of universal validity,
bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for
the Chinese novel and drama.” The winner was announced at 1:00 Stockholm
time.
Gao Xingjian was born on
January 4, 1940 in Ganzhou (Jiangxi province) in eastern China. Today,
Xingjian is a French citizen. He's a writer of prose, translator, dramatist,
director, critic, and more...
As a playwright, he has introduced
absurdist and avant-garde ideas to a Chinese audience. His first job was
as a translator on the French-language edition of Chinese Reconstructs
(he took a degree from the French Department of Foreign Languages in Beijing).
He spent five years in a cadre school during the Cultural Revolution and
later worked as a translator in the Chinese Writers Association.
He published his first novella
in 1978. In 1981, he transferred to the People's Art Troupe as a writer,
and has written numerous plays, of which the most famous and abstract is
Chezhan (The Bus-stop, 1983). Other works include: A Pigeon Called Red
Beak (1985), Collected Plays (1985), Wild Man (1985), and In Search of
a Modern Form of Dramatic Representation (1987). He now lives in France.
Many of his works have been
translated into English, Swedish and French.
If one of the criteria for
a great writer includes that his books have been banned, Xingjian fits
well in the ranks of the greats... The Other Shore was banned in 1986;
and since then, none of his plays have been performed in China.
In the Press Release, the
Swedish Academny states that Gao Xingjian's "great novel Soul Mountain
is one of those singular literary creations that seem impossible to compare
with anything but themselves."
Here's an excerpt from the
first chapter of his book, Soul Mountain:
The hunter is already myth.
To talk about a mixture of history and legend is how folk stories are born.
Reality exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
However, once related, even personal experience becomes a narrative. Reality
can’t be verified and doesn’t need to be, that can be left for the reality
of life experts to debate. What is important is life. Reality is simply
that I am sitting by the fire in this room which is black with grime and
smoke and that I see the light of the fire dancing in his eyes. Reality
is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can’t
be related to another person. All that needs to be said is that outside,
a mist is enclosing the green-blue mountain in a haze and your heart is
reverberating with the rushing water of a swift-flowing stream.
According to the Swedish
Academy, "Soul Mountain is a novel of a pilgrimage made by the protagonist
to himself and a journey along the reflective surface that divides fiction
from life, imagination from memory. The discussion of the problem of knowledge
increasingly takes the form of a rehearsal of freedom from goals and meaning.
Through its polyphony, its blend of genres and the scrutiny that the act
of writing subjects itself to, the book recalls German Romanticism’s magnificent
concept of a universal poetry."
Gao Xingjian is also known
for his second novel, One Man's Bible. Although the themes are in line
with his previous book, apparently, this book is more accessible. Here
he draws from his own experiences in China: "With ruthless candour the
author accounts for his experiences as a political activist, victim and
outside observer, one after the other" (Swedish Academy Press Release).
So, the work of Gao Xingjian
will be remembered for all time, “for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter
insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese
novel and drama.”
From: http://classiclit.about.com/arts/classiclit/library/weekly/aa101200a.htm
