Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

Gao Xingjian's fiction, plays, and critical essays on literature began to appear in literary magazines for the first time in China during the early 1980s. His book Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao chutan (Preliminary Explorations on the Art of Modern Fiction, 1981) created a sensation in the Chinese literary world but was banned upon being reprinted in 1982. Arguably, the 1980s were much more liberal than the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), during which time Gao had burned all his manuscripts, diaries, and notes rather than allow them to be found and used as life-threatening evidence against him. Nonetheless, even while conscientiously exercising self-censorship, he found that his writings still caused him to be denounced for promoting the decadent modernism of Western capitalist literature. In December 1987, when the opportunity arose, he left China for Europe. Some months later he settled in Paris, where he has lived since.

Gao himself has selected the six stories of this English-language version of Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather: it is his view that these stories are best able to represent what he is striving to achieve in his fiction. The stories, "The Temple," "In the Park," "The Accident," "Cramp," and "Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather," written in Beijing between 1983 and 1986, were first published in various literary magazines in China. These five stories are included in Gao's seventeen-story collection, Gei wo laoye mai yugan (Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather), which he compiled a few weeks prior to his departure from China. This collection suffered the fate of being rejected by all the major publishers in China but was eventually published in Taiwan in 1989. The last of the stories, "In an Instant," written in Paris in October 1990, was first published in Stockholm in the Chinese literary magazine Jintian (Today) and then included in Gao's Zhoumo sichongzou (Weekend Quartet), published in Hong Kong in 1996.

While still in Beijing Gao wrote a brief postscript for his seventeen-story collection, Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, in which he warns readers that his fiction does not set out to tell a story. There is no plot, as found in most fiction, and anything of interest to be found in it is inherent in the language itself. More explicit is his proposal that the linguistic art of fiction is "the actualization of language and not the imitation of reality in writing," and that its power to fascinate lies in the fact that, even while employing language, it is able to evoke authentic feelings in the reader. The stories of Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather and the novels Lingshan (1990; translated as Soul Mountain , 2000) and Yige ren de shengjing (1999; translated as One Man's Bible, 2002) document the scope of Gao's unique and continuing experimentation in the genre.

Mabel Lee

University of Sydney

"The Temple " was first published in Chinese as "Yuan en si" in Haiyan 7 (Dalian, 1983). First collected in Gao Xingjian, Gei wo laoye mai yugan (Taipei: Lianhe Literature Publishing House, 1989). First published in English in The New Yorker (February 17 and 24, 2003).

"In the Park" was first published in Chinese as "Gongyuan li" in Nanfang wenxue 4 (Guangzhou, 1985). First collected in Gao Xingjian, Gei wo laoye mai yugan (Taipei: Lianhe Literature Publishing House, 1989). First published in English in The Kenyon Review 26, no. 1 (winter 2004).

"Cramp" was first published in Chinese as "Choujin" in Xiaoshuo zhoubao 1 (Beijing, 1985). First collected in Gao Xingjian, Gei wo laoye mai yugan (Taipei: Lianhe Literature Publishing House, 1989).

"The Accident" was first published in Chinese as "Chehuo" in Fujian wenxue 5 (Fuzhou, 1985). First collected in Gao Xingjian, Gei wo laoye mai yugan (Taipei: Lianhe Literature Publishing House, 1989). First published in English in The New Yorker (June 2, 2003).

"Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather" was first published in Chinese as "Gei wo laoye mai yugan" in Renmin wenxue 9 (Beijing, 1986). First collected in Gao Xingjian, Gei wo laoye mai yugan (Taipei: Lianhe Literature Publishing House, 1989). First published in English in Grand Street 72 (fall 2003).

"In an Instant" was first published in Chinese as "Shunjian" in Jin-tian 1 (Stockholm, 1991), and first collected in Zhoumo sichongzou (Hong Kong: New Century Publishing House, 1996).