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Shi Tiesheng

シー・ティエション

Shi Tiesheng

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1951-01-04 （Beijing, China）
Died
2010-12-31 （Beijing, China） age 59
Nationality
China
Languages
Chinese
Residence History
Beijing, China → Shaanxi Province (sent-down location)

Career

Occupations
Novelist, Writer, Essayist
Active Years
1979-2010

Education

Tsinghua University High School
Country: China
Graduated from high school. Sent down as an urban youth during the Cultural Revolution.

Awards

Lao She Literature Prize
2002
Work: Fragments Written at the Hiatuses of Sickness
Organization: Lao She Literature Prize Committee
Result: 受賞
National Excellent Short Story Prize
1983
Work: My Faraway Clear Peace River
Organization: National Literary Awards (China)
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Like a Banjo String

1985 Novella

A story about a pair of blind musicians; contains allegorical elements on life, fate, and art.

fatearthuman dignity
Adaptations
  • [Film] Life on a String / 陳凱歌 (Chen Kaige) (1991)
Translations
  • Like a Banjo String (included in English collections)

My Faraway Clear Peace River

1983 Short story

Deals with a sent-down urban youth and an old villager; depicts the long-term suffering of peasants.

rusticationrural lifegenerational conflict

Sunday

1988 Short story collection

A collection of short stories exploring urban and rural life and inner experience.

inner lifesocial change

Notes on Principles

1996 Novel / Prose

A philosophical and experimental work regarded by some scholars as an important piece of contemporary Chinese literature.

ontologymemoryidentity

My Sojourn in Ding Yi

2006 Novel

Through the premise of an immortal spirit inhabiting multiple people, the novel questions human existence and time.

immortalityreincarnationexistence
Translations
  • English translation (My Travels in Ding Yi), Sinoist Books 2019

Bibliography

  • My Faraway Clear Peace River (short stories)
  • Like a Banjo String (novella)
  • Sunday (short stories)
  • Notes on Principles
  • Fragments Written at the Hiatuses of Sickness
  • My Sojourn in Ding Yi

Adaptations

  • Life on a String (film, dir. Chen Kaige, 1991)
  • Our Corner (short film based on Shi's story, dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1980)

Translations of Works

  • Strings of Life (English collection of short stories, 1991)
  • My Travels in Ding Yi (English translation, Sinoist Books, 2019)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
introspectiveessayistic/prose stylecontains allegorical elements
Recurring Motifs
illness and the bodymemory and the pastlife and death

Health

  • Paralysis (spinal/limb paralysis due to accident)
    1972-2010
    Paralyzed at age 21 in an accident and used a wheelchair thereafter; this profoundly influenced his life and writing.
  • Kidney failure (requiring dialysis)
    1998-2010
    Kidney function declined around 1998 and he required dialysis three times weekly, affecting his daily life and creative work.
  • Cerebral hemorrhage
    2010-12-31
    Died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 31, 2010.

Legacy

Regarded as an important essayist and novelist in modern Chinese literature for his writing about rustication and confronting illness. Essays such as "I and the Temple of Earth" are sometimes cited among the best prose of the 20th century. Film adaptations and English translations helped introduce his work internationally.

In Popular Culture

  • Influenced visual culture through film adaptations such as Chen Kaige's Life on a String.

Quotes

  • Many critics have considered "I and the Temple of Earth" to be one of the best Chinese prose essays of the 20th century.
    Source: China Daily (2003, cited) (2003)

Trivia

  • Became paralyzed and wheelchair-bound after an accident at age 21.
  • Was sent down to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution; those experiences informed his writing.
  • "Like a Banjo String" was adapted into the film Life on a String directed by Chen Kaige.
  • An English collection of his short stories, Strings of Life, was published in 1991.