Shan Sa
Author of The Girl Who Played Go
About the Author
Image credit: Europe & Me
Works by Shan Sa
2002 1 copy
Thiếu Nữ Đánh Cờ Vây 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Shan Sa
- Legal name
- 阎妮 (Yan Ni)
- Other names
- Shan Sa
山飒 (Shan sa)
阎妮 (Yan Ni)
Yan Ni Ni - Birthdate
- 1972-10-26
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- China (birth)
France - Country (for map)
- France
- Birthplace
- Beijing, China
- Places of residence
- Beijing, China
Changchun, Jilin Province, China
Paris, France - Education
- Beijing Second Experimental Primary School (北京市海淀区东升小学), Beijing, China
Middle School attached to North-East Normal University (东北师大附中学), Changchun, Jilin, China
High School Affiliated to Peking University (北京大学附属中学), Beijing, China
École Alsacienne, Paris, France
Sorbonne University, Paris, France - Occupations
- Painter
secretary - Relationships
- Yan Chunde [阎纯德] (father)
- Organizations
- Académie française
- Awards and honors
- Prix Cazes-Brasserie Lipp (1999)
Kiriyama Prize for fiction (2004) - Short biography
- Shan Sa is the pseudonym of Yan Ni , a French author and painter. The Girl Who Played Go was the first of her novels to be published outside of France, and won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens . Her second novel to appear in English translation was Empress . Shan Sa is also a painter with exhibitions in Paris and New York. Shan Sa was born as Yan Ni in Beijing, China to a scholarly family. She adopted the pseudonym Shan Sa from a poem by the Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi. At age 8, she published her first poetry collection, and went on to obtain the first prize in the national poetry contest for children under 12 years, an event that created a public upheaval. After graduating from secondary school in Beijing, she moved to Paris in August 1990 thanks to a grant by the French government. Settling there with her father, a professor at the Sorbonne University, she quickly adopted the French language. In 1994, she finished her studies of philosophy. From 1994 to 1996 she worked as a secretary of painter Balthus.
Members
Reviews
Very interesting, enjoyable book about the Japanese invasion of China in the 30s. Told in alternative perspectives of a young girl who is a masterful Go player and a Japanese solider. The writing has many lovely phrases and images.
One of those books that's very hard to rate. At times I was loving it and completely engaged. At other times... pretty bored. Regardless, this is a fascinating topic. I really enjoyed learning about the woman and the time period. It certainly piqued my interest in this historical period.
I wanted to like this book...I mean...how could I not when it starts like this:
“In the Square of a Thousand Winds the frost-covered players look like snowmen. White vapor billows from their mouths and noses, and icicles growing along the underside of their fur hats point sharply downwards. The sky is pearly and the crimson sun is sinking, dying. Where does the sun go to die?"
But it just took too much effort to like the characters.
“In the Square of a Thousand Winds the frost-covered players look like snowmen. White vapor billows from their mouths and noses, and icicles growing along the underside of their fur hats point sharply downwards. The sky is pearly and the crimson sun is sinking, dying. Where does the sun go to die?"
But it just took too much effort to like the characters.
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Statistics
- Works
- 17
- Members
- 1,898
- Popularity
- #13,569
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 62
- ISBNs
- 91
- Languages
- 17
- Favorited
- 3
The book is narrated by two people in alternating chapters--a young girl in Manchuria during the Japanese invasion of her country and the other is a young soldier in the invading army. The chapters are short--barely 3 pages in most cases--and written in a simply elegant way as to make me envy it. The novel reads almost like a poem at times, reminding me of the Japanese poetic verse of 'tanka' (Tanka are 31-syllable poems that have been the most popular form of poetry in Japan for at least 1300 years. As a form of poetry, tanka is older than haiku, and tanka poems evoke a moment or mark an occasion with concision and musicality.) but extended.
There is a brutal reality to both of their lives, rising tensions and political hostilities that can't be ignored. When they play though, when they are facing each other across the Go board and match wits and strategies, there is nothing else in world except the need to out-maneuver the other.
The book is translated into English, so there are occasional translator notes strewn throughout to explain why certain phrases/words were kept intact, but there are also historical annotations made when an event or person is mentioned. Especially when the soldier is narrating. Sometimes I appreciated them, but other times I was just annoyed because in the beginning some of the explanations take up a third of the page.
A reviewer commented that the romance between both is rather Romeo/Juliet like. I suppose if I had to describe it that would be accurate enough. Certainly there's the same sort of urgent secrecy to their love, but when one is dissatisfied with life and the other is doubting the very foundations of their life, it only seems logical they would be drawn together.… (more)