One Man's Bible (, French: Le Livre d'un homme seul) is a novel by Gao Xingjian published in 1999 and in English translation in 2003. Set during the Cultural Revolution, the novel stars an alter-ego of Gao who reflects on his previous experiences around the world. Throughout the book, the chapters alternate between the narrator describing his life during and after his time in China during the Cultural Revolution. He describes how he looks for freedom and how to retain that freedom. The book was originally published in Chinese in 1999. The book was later translated into English by Mabel Lee, a Chinese professor at the University of Sydney. Éditions de l'Aube published the book in French. William John Francis Jenner writing for The Guardian said that the book "belongs to that sad class of books sold on the strength of their authors having won a prize. But a prize is rather a thin argument for reading it, especially in a wooden English translation." Plot Summary Because the book jumps around on the timeline of the narrator's life it is difficult to give a perfectly linear plot summary. The book opens with a nameless narrator, who is the alter ego of Gao Xingjian, who is talking about an old photo taken with family members. He reminisces how he was the only young child in the photograph and how he had to deal with many illnesses when he was young. At the same time, he declares how fragile his family is and how they progressively disappear during his lifetime. He jumps forward in time and is now making love to a woman, who is named Margarethe, in a hotel room in Hong Kong. They discuss how they first met through a mutual friend, named Peter, and how at the time of their meeting, the narrator had had a young Chinese woman in his apartment. Margarethe asks who the girl was and he tells her that she was a nameless, young, Chinese army nurse he had been sleeping with at the time. The pair had planned to leave the country but missed each other at the airport and he boarded without her. After this story, Gao and Margarethe discuss his missed opportunity to paint in Germany because the Chinese government would not sanction his leaving the country due to his status as a writer. Following this conversation, Gao has a dream of