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Chapters: Song Yingxing, Gao Xingjian, Wang Zuo, Zeng Qinghong, Zhang Guotao, Wang Anshi, Tao Kan, Ma Liwen, Chuan-Chih Hsiung, Tao Qian, Hu Xiaomei, Yang Wenjun, François Cheng, Chen Li-An, Edgar Tang, He Hanbin, He Zizhen, Tan Lun, Mei Ju-Ao, Liu Tao, Peng Bo, Ouyang Kunpeng, Li Liejun, Ch'eng Mao-Yün, Zhang Xun, Wang Dongxing, Wu Jingyu, Xiao Gang, Tao Yujia, Luo Jialun, Gao Yulan, Kong Dan, Zhang Li, Chen Baozhen, Li Zuopeng, Geng Hongbin, Min Zhen, Zhang Zhiwu. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 130. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Song Yingxing (Traditional Chinese:; Simplified Chinese:; Wade Giles: Sung Ying-Hsing; 1587-1666 AD), born in Yichun of Jiangxi, was a Chinese scientist and encyclopedist who lived during the late Ming Dynasty (13681644). He was the author of an encyclopedia that covered a wide variety of technical subjects, including the use of gunpowder weapons. Comparing him to the famous French encyclopedist Denis Diderot, the British sinologist and historian Joseph Needham called Song Yingxing, "The Diderot of China." Song Yingxing achieved only modest wealth and influence during his life. Born in 1587 to a gentry family of reduced circumstances, he participated in the imperial examinations, and passed the provincial test in 1615, at the age of 28. However, he was repeatedly unsuccessful in the metropolitan examination. Song sat for the test five times, the last being in 1631 at the age of 44. After this last failure, he held a series of minor positions in provincial government. The works for which Song is known today all date from 1636 to 1637. The repeated trips to the capital to participate in the metropolitan examination likely provided him with the broad base of knowledge demonstrated in the works. Song retired from public life in 1644, after the fall of t...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=8611724 ... Read more

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This digital document, covering the life and work of Gao Xingjian, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1460 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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Chapters: List of Chinese Language Poets, Lu Xun, Lao She, Mao Dun, Han Han, Ye Shengtao, Gao Xingjian, Ba Jin, Zhang Chengzhi, Vivibear, Young John Allen, Hualing Nieh Engle, Wu Cheng'en, Guo Quan, Cao Xueqin, Ding Ling, George Kao, Bei Dao, Hai Zi, Xu Zhimo, Xiao Hong, Mo Yan, Zhang Tianyi, Huang Chunming, Chiung Yao, Yang Hengjun, Li Qingzhao, Li Yu, Yu Hua, Shen Congwen, Wang Tuoh, Chen Yingzhen, Guan Hanqing, Su Xuelin, Su Tong, Zhang Jie, Ge Fei, Jiang Gui, Pu Songling, Guo Guoting, Chu Hsi-Ning, Shen Haobo, Li Ang, Shen Fu, Shi Naian, Yu Lihua, Jiang Yan, Zhang Yingtai, Wang Wenhua, Wang Zhenhe, Ma Sen, Huang Fan. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 211. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Lu Xun (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: L Xùn) or Lu Hsün (Wade-Giles), was the pen name of Zhou Shuren (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Zhu Shùrén; Wade-Giles: Chou Shu-jen) (September 25, 1881 October 19, 1936) is one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua () (the vernacular) as well as classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai. Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement to such a point that he was lionized by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party - like fellow leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a liberal. Lu Xun's works are known to English readers through numerous translations, especially Se...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=65861 ... Read more

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Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Editorial ReviewsAs one of Gao Xingjian's characters remarks, if a fiction writer could know the true stories of the people he passes on the street, he would be amazed. Surely the Nobel laureate's own story, which forms the basis of Soul Mountain, is worthy of amazement. In 1983 Gao was diagnosed with lung cancer, the disease that had killed his father. At the same time, he had been threatened with arrest for his counterrevolutionary writings and was preparing to flee Beijing for the remote regions of southwest China. Shortly before his departure, however, the condemned man got at least a partial reprieve: a second set of x-rays revealed no cancer at all. On the heels of this extraordinary redemption, he began the circuitous journey that would lead him to the sacred (and possibly mythical) mountain of Lingshan--and to this daring, historically resonant novel. A destination chosen arbitrarily, at the suggestion of a fellow traveler, the elusive Lingshan becomes rich with meaning for the narrator of Soul Mountain. Meanwhile, the narrator himself shows a tendency to go forth and multiply. First he divides into You and I. Then You generates yet a third voice, a somewhat simple but intense young woman named She, followed by He--and none of these personae can resist the elemental lure of the sacred site. Indeed, the search for Lingshan becomes a metaphor for all spiritual striving: when thousands of monuments, temples, and graves were reduced to rubble. The obliteration of these reminders of the dead becomes a torment to the narrators of the novel, who struggle to assert their individuality--itself a proscribed act in Communist China--against what they see as a false and brutal ideal that has swept away history, literature, and tradition as decisively as it has destroyed the ancient forestscality. --Regina Marler--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. ... Read more