Public Events: recordings
Translating Gao Xingjian (Nobel Laureate Literature 2000)
Mabel Lee
All but one member of the Swedish Academy relied exclusively on French, Swedish, or English translations in awarding the Nobel Prize to Gao Xingjian in 2000. Dr Lee had ended her thirty-four-year career as an academic at the University of Sydney in January 2000, her translation of Gao Xingjian's 563-page novel Soul Mountain was published in July 2000 and, when four months later it was announced that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, she found herself launched in a new career as a major translator of the Nobel winner, and as one of the most prolific academics writing on his work.
It was just over a decade earlier, in late 1987, that Gao Xingjian had relocated from Beijing to Paris where he was able to pursue a creative life as an artist, novelist, playwright, director of his own plays, critic, and filmmaker. Dr Lee's lecture will explore the intellectual and aesthetic dimensions of Gao Xingjian's work.
Dr Lee is Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sydney. Her lecture is co-hosted by the UTS Research Centre for Social and Cultural Change in China and the UTS Institute for International Studies.
When: Wednesday May 23
Download: Audio file (35.7MB, 64kbps mp3 file)
