Gao Xingjian

Advantages: Powerful retelling of world-shaking events by a distinguished author
Disadvantages: Unsympathetic, self-conscious, self-absorbed

...What do you do when you come away from reading a book convinced that it is of literary importance, and having been absorbed by it throughout, but without having liked it? Write a review on Ciao, of course, to explore and explain your ambivalence. Which is why I am here reviewing Gao Xingjian’s autobiographical novel One Man’s Bible. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * “It was not that he didn’t remember that he once had another sort of life….” This is the opening line of One Man’s Bible, and it sets the agenda in more than one respect. This is a novel of remembrance, of the past relived and reinterpreted in the present, of the present overshadowed and transmuted by the past. But this opening line is already set in the past, harking back to a more distant past again, thus hinting both at the ongoing power of what has passed before... Read review

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Advantages: An auto-biography of a 'real' person
Disadvantages: Quite dark.

..., and she tries to remain positive for the most part. You do not get bogged down in the depths of despair even in the darkest times that she experienced in prison as the story flows well and keeps moving on. Life and Death in Shanghai is not the best of its genre (see To the Edge of the Sky by Anhua Gao), nor is it the worst (see Red Azalea by Anchee Min), but it is certainly one of the darkest that I have read. As far as I can tell, at the end of last year Mrs. Cheng was still alive and well and living a quite life in the USA. This is her only book and was first published in 1988 (the edition I read), and again in 1995, which is the edition found at most online shops. Currently the best deal is at Play.com for £6.99 delivered.... Read review

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