English Translations of Works by the First Chinese Nobel Laureate in Literature
The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian
It was announced that Mr. Gao Xingjian has won the honor of the Nobel Laureate in Literature for 2000. He is the only Chinese writer to achieve such an international acclaim thus far.
We are pleased to inform you that The Chinese University Press is the first publisher of his work: The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian in the English language in 1999. Indeed, The Other Shore is one of the two works by the author available in English to this day.
The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian contains five of Gao's most recent works: The Other Shore (1986), Between Life and Death (1991), Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992), Nocturnal Wanderer (1993), and Weekend Quartet (1995). With original imagery and in beautiful language style, these plays illuminate the realities of life, death, sex, loneliness, and exile, which are phenomena of existence of modern man. The plays also show the dramatist's idea of the tripartite actor, a process by which the actor neutralizes himself and achieves a disinterested observation of his self in performance. There is also an introduction by the translator which describes the dramatist and his view on drama.
Born and educated in China, Gao studied French literature at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute between 1957-1962. He became a resident playwright at the Beijing People's Art Theatre after the Cultural Revolution. His plays have been performed all around the world, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, the Ivory Coast, the United States, France, Germany and other European countries. His works were trend-setting and have created many controversies. He settled in France in 1987 and continued his playwriting. He was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1992.
The translator, Gilbert C. F. Fong, has written many articles on modern and contemporary Chinese literature and literary translation. Presently he is an associate professor at the Department of Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and is heading a research project on the history of Hong Kong drama. He is also the editor of the monographs Studies on Hong Kong Drama and Plays from Hong Kong, and of the journal Hong Kong Drama Review.