The Case for Literature

Voici, à la veille de la sortie de l'ouvrage aux Etats-Unis (26/02/07), la notice diffusée par Yale University Press pour annoncer la publication de The Case for Literature de Gao Xingjian :

When Gao Xingjian was crowned Nobel Laureate in 2000, it was the first time in the hundred-year history of the Nobel Prize that this honor had been awarded to an author for a body of work written in Chinese. The same year, American readers embraced Mabel Lee’s translation of Gao’s lyrical and autobiographical novel Soul Mountain, making it a national bestseller. Gao’s plays, novels, and short fiction have won the Chinese expatriate an international following and a place among the world’s greatest living writers.

The bold and extraordinary essays in this volume—all beautifully translated by sinologist Mabel Lee—include Gao's Nobel Lecture (“The Case for Literature”), “Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth,” “Cold Literature", “Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain,” and “The Necessity of Loneliness”, as well as other essays. These essays embody an argument for literature as a universal human endeavor rather than one defined and limited by national boundaries. Gao believes in the need for the writer to stand apart from collective movements, regardless of whether these are engineered by political parties or driven by economic or other forces not related to literature. This collection presents Gao's innovative ideas on aesthetics, and it constitutes the very kernel of his thinking on literary creation.

Le lecteur français peut déjà se faire une bonne idée du contenu de cet ouvrage grâce au Témoignage de la littérature (Traduit du chinois par Noël et Liliane Dutrait) paru en 2004 aux Editions du Seuil (159 pages) :

"Préface de l'auteur" (pp. 7-17).
"Ne pas avoir de -isme" (pp. 19-38)
"La littérature froide" (pp. 39-44)

"Littérature et "étude du mystère" : à propos de La Montagne de l'Âme" (pp. 45-78)

"Le chinois moderne et l'écriture littéraire" (pp. 79-108)
"La raison d'être de la littérature" (pp. 109-134)
"Le témoignage de la littérature - la recherche du réel" (pp. 135-158)

Nous aurons naturellement l'occasion de parler, ici, du travail de Mabel Lee et de The Case for Literature. Pour l'heure, je souhaite, à titre personnel et à ceux qui ont la chance de pouvoir en prendre, d'excellentes vacances, et vous donne rendez-vous début mars. (PK)