The end of the Cultural Revolution and the implementation of considerably more liberal policies meant that Gao Xingjian was able to publish, despite continuing aftershocks from those times.
Basic human instincts, sensitivities, thinking, perceptions and judgements were repressed and stunted, and extreme forms of socialist-realist and romantic-revolutionary representations of reality became the compulsory basis of all creative endeavours: literature and the arts therefore became representations of a distorted reality. At the time, China was just beginning to emerge from the throes of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), a decade during which the self of the individual was virtually annihilated from intellectual and creative activities. Gao Xingjian came to national and international prominence as a writer and critic during the early 1980s for his experimental works of drama, fiction and theory that contravened the guidelines established by the ideologues of the Chinese Communist Party. He completed secondary and tertiary studies in the People’s Republic of China (established in 1949 after the Communist victory in the civil war against the Nationalists), graduating with a major in French from the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute in 1962. Gao Xingjian was born on 4 January 1940 in war-torn China soon after the beginning of the Japanese invasion. ‘Gao’s flight to rural China to evade imprisonment inspired this dazzling autobiographical novel… Superficially, this epic picaresque resembles familiar western literary forms but its bedrock is utterly other.’ This search for self serves to set the book beyond cultures while also succeeding in presenting the Western reader with a wonderfully broad portrait of a country caught between the ancient and the modern in a most fundamental way.’ Part novel, part philosophical tract, the genius of Soul Mountain lies in its not attempting to offer any answers… It instead belongs to that curious genre of intellectual quest dominated by the great German writer WG Sebald. ‘A rich soup of a book… One man’s personal and philosophical odyssey evolves against the dramatic and vibrantly physical background of Central China’s ancient forests. It is not easy to say what the novel is about - and yet the marvel is that somehow it is still both engaging and elegant.’ ‘Arguably finest work… Soul Mountain is a quirky, thick, playful monster of a book, a bit like what one might expect if Beckett or Ionesco had traveled in China and been steeped in Chinese myths. HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publicationĮbook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007385737įrom the international reviews for Soul Mountain: No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. Gao Xingjian asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this workĪ catalogue record for this book is available from the British LibraryĪll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GFįirst published as Lingshan in Taiwan by Lianjing Chubanshe in 1990 First published in English by Flamingo (Australia) in 2000Įnglish language translation copyright © Mabel Lee 2000
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.Īn imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
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