One Man’s Bible

Gao Xingjian was born in 1940 in Jiangxi province in eastern China, and has lived in France since 1987. Gao is considered an artistic innovator in his native China, both in the visual arts and in literature. He is that rare multi-talented artist who excels as a novelist, playwright, essayist, director and painter. Two novels, the internationally best-selling ‘Soul Mountain’ and ‘One Man's Bible’, are available in English, as well as a collection of short stories, ‘Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather’ and a volume of his art entitled ‘Return to Painting’.

‘Brilliant and poetic, keen and original…Gao has written a book drenched in the political turmoil in China. But his ambition is to transcend the specifics of time and place, to write a meditation on literature itself and its ability to reveal the raging, brutal, brilliant beast that is mankind…“One Man’s Bible” burns with a powerfully individualistic fire of intelligence and depth of feeling…Unforgettable.’ New York Times‘An absorbing historical primer on the decades of Maoist terror…Both more personal and more political than its predecessor, “Soul Mountain”, “One Man’s Bible” is a Chinese variation on an important global literary theme: the desperate quest by those living under dictatorships of all kinds to escape the crushing forces of totalitarian collectivism.’ TLS‘Everything a novel should be…Like all good novelists Gao creates a world, not as a kind of wallpaper or filling but as a place in which the protagonist suffers and sometimes is happy.’ Literary Review‘Dreamlike, elegant and haunting.’ Boston Globe