- Gao Xingjian
- 18+
A novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author of international bestseller 'Soul Mountain'. 'Unforgettable. "One Man's Bible" burns with a powerfully individualistic fire of intelligence and depth of feeling.' New York TimesMoving between the nightmare of the Cultural Revolution and the tentative, limited liberties of the China of the 1990s, 'One Man's Bible' weaves memories of a Beijing boyhood and amorous encounters in Hong Kong with a fictionalized account of Gao Xingjian's life under the communist regime – where a single sentence spoken ten years earlier can make one an enemy of the state. A fluid, elegant exploration of memory, This novel is a profound meditation on the essence of writing and exile, on the effects of political oppression on the human spirit – and on how that spirit can triumph.
ONE
MAN’S
BIBLE
Gao Xingjian
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollins
Published by Flamingo 2003
First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 2002
Copyright © 1999 Gao Xingjian
English language translation copyright © 2002 Mabel Lee
First published as
Gao Xingjian asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780007142422
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007384068
Version: 2017-04-25
It was not that he didn’t remember he once had another sort of life. But, like the old yellowing photograph at home, which he did not burn, it was sad to think about, and far away, like another world that had disappeared forever. In his Beijing home, confiscated by the police, he had a family photo left by his dead father: it was a happy gathering, and everyone in the big family was present. His grandfather who was still alive at the time, his hair completely white, was reclined in a rocking chair, paralyzed and unable to speak. He, the eldest son and eldest grandson of the family, the only child in the photo, was squashed between his grandparents. He was wearing slit trousers that showed his little dick, and he had on his head an American-style boat-shaped cap. At the time, the eight-year War of Resistance against the Japanese had just ended, and the Civil War had not properly started. The photograph had been taken on a bright summer day in front of the round gateway in the garden, which was full of golden chrysanthemums and purple-red cockscombs. That was what he recalled of the garden, but the photo was water-stained and had turned a grayish yellow. Behind the round gateway was a two-story, English-style building with a winding walkway below and a balustrade upstairs. It was the big house he had lived in. He recalled that there were thirteen people in the photograph—an unlucky number—his parents, his paternal uncles and aunts, and also the wife of one of the uncles. Now, apart from an aunt in America and himself, all of them and the big house had vanished from this world.