“The book is a timely addition to the growing critical works and translations in Gao Xingjian studies. It also announces Gao (to English-language readers) as a major voice in literary aesthetics and politics, a Chinese Nobel Prize winner who remains a leading figure in creative circles and in dialogues and debates between China and the West. The English translations are easy to read and help to explain concepts of Gao’s that are not readily understood in Western languages. The work has been edited carefully and, while the language is appropriate for a critical work, technical terms have been explained and translated into common usage for lay readers. It is a beautifully produced book, with a cover that shows the writer Gao Xingjian engaged in deep introspection … highly readable and engaging.” Read the full MCLC review the Cambria Press blog.

Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian is amongst the most challenging writers of the present era. He has probed the dynamics of Chinese and European literature and developed unique strategies for the writing of seventeen plays, two novels, a collection of short stories and a collection of poems. He has also written two collections of criticism.

For his contributions to literature Gao has received several prestigious awards. In 1985 he was awarded a DAAD fellowship in Berlin for six months, and in 1992 he was awarded the French title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in Paris. In the year 2000 within weeks he was declared Nobel Laureate for Literature in Stockholm and Premio Letterario Feronia in Rome. In France he was feted with the award of Chevalier de l’Ordre de Légion d’Honneur, and the City of Marseille declared that 2003 would be designated “L’anné Gao Xingjian,” a year that would be devoted to showcasing his achievements.

About the translator

Mabel Lee is an honorary professor of translation at the Open University of Hong Kong and an adjunct professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney. Her research field is modern Chinese intellectual history and literature, and she is a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She has published extensively on Lu Xun and 2000 Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian (b. 1940), and has translated Gao’s Soul Mountain (2000), One Man’s Bible (2002), Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2004), and The Case for Literature (2006/7). From the late 1980s until 2000 she was coeditor of the University of Sydney East Asian Series and assistant editor of the Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia.

Introduction by Mabel Lee

Chapter 1: The Position of the Writer

Chapter 2: The Art of Fiction

Chapter 3: The Potential of Theatre

Chapter 4: The Aesthetics of the Artist

Chapter 5: Another Kind of Aesthetics

Chapter 6: Dramaturgical Method and the Neutral Actor

Chapter 7: Concerning Silhouette/Shadow

Chapter 8: Environment and Literature

Chapter 9: Ideology and Literature