Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather - Hardcover

Gao Xingjian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007170386 ISBN 13: 9780007170388

Publisher: Flamingo, 2004

Synopsis

From China's first-ever winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature comes an exquisite new book of fictions, none of which has ever been published before in English.

A young couple on honeymoon visit a beautiful temple up in the mountains, and spend the day intoxicated by the tranquillity of the setting; a swimmer is paralysed by a sudden cramp and finds himself stranded far out to sea on a cold autumn day; a man reminisces about his beloved grandfather, who used to make his own fishing rods from lengths of crooked bamboo straightened over a fire...

Blending the crisp immediacy of the present moment with the soft afterglow of memory and nostalgia, these stories hum with simplicity and wisdom – and will delight anyone who loved Gao's bestselling novels, Soul Mountain and One Man's Bible.

About this title

Review:

Praise for Gao Xingjian:

'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.' Daily Telegraph

'Brilliant and poetic, keen and original... Gao's 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 itself... [His work] burns with a powerfully individualistic fire of intelligence and depth of feeling... Unforgettable.' New York Times

About the Author:

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 from Flamingo, as well as a volume of his art entitled Return to Painting.

About this edition

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0007170386
• ISBN 13: 9780007170388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192