2000 Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian’s novels Soul Mountain (1990) and One Man’s Bible (1999) are two works of autobiographical fiction that document his life in China. He began writing Soul Mountain in Beijing in 1982 for his personal enjoyment, believing that it had no prospect of ever being published. Even when he travelled to Europe at the end of 1987 and settled in Paris, he considered it only to be a temporary respite that would allow him to write freely. However, circumstances were such that prompted his decision not to return to his ancestral land as long as it remained under authoritarian rule. His bringing Soul Mountain to completion was a psychological strategy as well as a symbolic gesture to sever ties with China. He became a French citizen in 1997, and around the same time began his second novel One Man’s Bible.
Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible are without precedent in world literature and have been translated into many languages, in the case of Soul Mountain into well over thirty languages. In probing beneath the surface of these two novels this talk will consider issues such why he chose to write autobiographical fiction, the significance of his using pronouns instead of named characters, and what literary traditions and practices can be said to have informed his writing.
REFERENCES Gao Xingjian, Lingshan (Taipei: Lianjing, 1990) Gao Xingjian, Yige ren de shengjing (Taipei: Lianjing, 1999) Gao Xingjian, Soul Mountain, tr. Mabel Lee (Sydney, New York, London: HarperCollins, 2000) Gao Xingjian, One Man’s Bible, tr. Mabel Lee (New York, Sydney, London: HarperCollins, 2002)Mabel Lee PhD FAHA is Adjunct Professor of Chinese Studies in the School of Languages & Cultures at the University of Sydney. She enjoys an international reputation for her translations of Soul Mountain, One Man’s Bible and other works by 2000 Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian, as well as for her critical studies on his literature, art and film. In 2008, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Kingdom’s Translation Association of the Society of Authors, her translation of Soul Mountain was listed as one of the “50 outstanding translations of the last half century.”Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption, prior to the RAS Weekender.
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