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 Gao's portraits of fellow wanderers, farmers and party officials are vivid and shine a light on their place and time. The language (wonderfully translated by Mabel Lee) is luminous and tactile! There's a feeling of entering and moving through a place we had seen only through mist.' Time Out 'When he writes of his experiences in the real world, Gao transcends cultural barriers. A good story will out in any language, and when Gao is good he is staggeringly so. His writing about the Cultural Revolution is remarkable.' Daily Telegraph 'There is a sense throughout that Gao is running after things that are already vanishing. On the nature reserves, people are shooting bears and even pandas; trees are being cut down a hundred times faster than before. Stones inscribed with historical inscriptions have been dynamited to yield materials for bridges that were never built! Soul Mountain is Gao's attempt to bring back what is lost. In the end, his gift is to look beyond politics at the human condition, offering no easy explanations and refusing artificial allegiances.' Sunday Times