Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather

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First edition
(publ. Flamingo Books - UK) Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather.jpg
First edition
(publ. Flamingo Books - UK)

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, also rendered from Chinese as A Fishing Rod for My Grandpa, is a 2004 collection of six short stories by the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian. All of the stories were originally written between 1983 and 1990. The stories were translated to English by Mabel Lee.

Contents

The book was published in New York by HarperCollins, in 2004, with ISBN   0-06-057555-7, and in London as Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather, translation by Mabel Lee, flamingo, London, 2004, ISBN   0-00-717038-6

Plot

Critical reception

Kirkus Reviews noted, 'The 2000 Nobel laureate’s declaration “that his fiction does not set out to tell a story” is supported by the six tales in this first translated collection. That aesthetic is thus summarized by scholar Lee, who has translated Gao’s ramshackle major novels Soul Mountain (2000) and One Man’s Bible (2002) and now these terse chamber pieces, which appeared separately during the years 1983–91 and together as part of a larger Chinese language collection. They’re generally “about” individual experiences seen in relation to larger contexts.' [1]

The anonymous reviewer concluded, "Inconsistently developed, but precisely detailed and delicately suggestive: the best work of Gao’s yet to appear in English translation". [1]

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References