What do you think?
Rate this book
Le Serpent Blanc
"The Legend of the White Snake" in 1960s China, questions of love and gender
Yan Geling took inspiration from the legend of the White Snake. According to this myth, two spirits half-snake, half-human arrived on Earth to live among us. Near the West Lake in China, the White Snake and her servant the Green Snake, took the form of a woman and her maid. A young man who passed by fell madly in love with the woman and married her. Unfortunately, their secret revealed, the two women return to their snake form to escape the wrath of the husband who felt utterly betrayed.
In Yan Geling's rewriting of the legend, the dancer Sun Likun was praised at a very young age for her interpretation of the heroine of the ballet "The Legend of the White Snake". But twenty years later, around the late 1960s, she was arrested and kidnapped by the government during the Cultural Revolution. Now prisoner, she remembers the beautiful years during which she was adored. One day, a mysterious young man visits her; he introduces himself as an inspector who has come to interrogate her, but his manners confuse her, while her guards wonder if this man is really who he claims to be.
Built in three parts of different styles, the story alternates between the official report, the public rumors and the intimate story, giving rise to subtle variations on the feeling of love.
Yan Geling took inspiration from the legend of the White Snake. According to this myth, two spirits half-snake, half-human arrived on Earth to live among us. Near the West Lake in China, the White Snake and her servant the Green Snake, took the form of a woman and her maid. A young man who passed by fell madly in love with the woman and married her. Unfortunately, their secret revealed, the two women return to their snake form to escape the wrath of the husband who felt utterly betrayed.
In Yan Geling's rewriting of the legend, the dancer Sun Likun was praised at a very young age for her interpretation of the heroine of the ballet "The Legend of the White Snake". But twenty years later, around the late 1960s, she was arrested and kidnapped by the government during the Cultural Revolution. Now prisoner, she remembers the beautiful years during which she was adored. One day, a mysterious young man visits her; he introduces himself as an inspector who has come to interrogate her, but his manners confuse her, while her guards wonder if this man is really who he claims to be.
Built in three parts of different styles, the story alternates between the official report, the public rumors and the intimate story, giving rise to subtle variations on the feeling of love.
144 pages, Paperback
Published April 27, 2022
1 person want to read
About the author
Geling Yan
83 books231 followersGeling Yan (嚴歌苓) is one of the most acclaimed novelists and screenwriters writing in the Chinese language today and a well-established writer in English. Born in Shanghai, she served with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the Cultural Revolution, starting at age twelve as a dancer in an entertainment troupe.
After serving for over a decade with the PLA (including tours in Tibet and as a war correspondent during the Sino-Vietnam border conflict), Ms. Yan was discharged with a rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel. She published her first novel in 1986 and ever since has produced a steady stream of novels, short stories, novellas, essays and scripts. Her best-known novels in English are The Secret Talker, published by HarperCollins; Little Aunt Crane published in the UK by Random House affiliate Harvill Secker; The Flowers of War, published in the U.S. by The Other Press and elsewhere by Random House's Harvill Secker; The Banquet Bug (The Uninvited in its UK edition - written directly in English); and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, (translated by Cathy Silber) both published by Hyperion in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK. She has also published a novella and short story collection called White Snake and Other Stories, translated by Lawrence A. Walker and published by Aunt Lute Books.
Many of Geling Yan's works have been adapted for film and television, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (directed by Joan Chen) and Siao Yu (directed by Sylvia Chang; produced by Ang Lee). Chinese director Zhang Yimou made The Flowers of War, a big-budget film based on her work set during the 1937 Rape of Nanking, starring Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale; Coming Home 归来, based on her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi 陆犯焉识, and One Second 一秒钟, also based on that novel.
Ms. Yan has also written numerous scripts based on her own and other authors' work, both in English and Chinese, including a script for a biopic on the iconic Peking opera star Mei Lanfang for director Chen Kaige (released as Forever Enthralled 梅兰芳) starring Leon Lai and Zhang Ziyi. She wrote the script for Dangerous Liaisons 危險關係, a Chinese-language film directed by South Korean director Hur Jin-ho and starring Zhang Ziyi, Jang Dong Gun and Cecilia Cheung. Her novel Fang Hua 芳华 is the basis a film of the same name (English title Youth) directed by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚. Her novel A City Called Macau 妈阁是座城 was made into a film directed by Li Shaohong 李少红, released in 2018.
Geling Yan a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and of France's Société des Gens de Lettres. She is affiliated with the Hollywood screenwriters' union, Writers' Guild of America, west, and is a former member of the Chinese Writers' Association (中国作家协会).
Geling Yan went to the United States at the end of 1989 for graduate study. She holds a Master's in Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from Columbia College, Chicago. To date she has published over 40 books in various editions in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, the UK and elsewhere; has won over 30 literary and film awards; and has had her work adapted or written scripts for numerous film, TV and radio works. Her works have been translated into twenty-one languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Uyghur, and Vietnamese, and her English-language novel The Banquet Bug/The Uninvited was translated into Chinese. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
She has been subject to an unofficial but effective ban in China since March 2020, when she wrote and promulgated an essay on the Chinese government's initial handling of COVID-19. Her future Chinese-language work will be published by her own publishing company, New Song Media GmbH.
For non-Chinese language publishing she is represented by Agence Astier-Pécher.
After serving for over a decade with the PLA (including tours in Tibet and as a war correspondent during the Sino-Vietnam border conflict), Ms. Yan was discharged with a rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel. She published her first novel in 1986 and ever since has produced a steady stream of novels, short stories, novellas, essays and scripts. Her best-known novels in English are The Secret Talker, published by HarperCollins; Little Aunt Crane published in the UK by Random House affiliate Harvill Secker; The Flowers of War, published in the U.S. by The Other Press and elsewhere by Random House's Harvill Secker; The Banquet Bug (The Uninvited in its UK edition - written directly in English); and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, (translated by Cathy Silber) both published by Hyperion in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK. She has also published a novella and short story collection called White Snake and Other Stories, translated by Lawrence A. Walker and published by Aunt Lute Books.
Many of Geling Yan's works have been adapted for film and television, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (directed by Joan Chen) and Siao Yu (directed by Sylvia Chang; produced by Ang Lee). Chinese director Zhang Yimou made The Flowers of War, a big-budget film based on her work set during the 1937 Rape of Nanking, starring Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale; Coming Home 归来, based on her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi 陆犯焉识, and One Second 一秒钟, also based on that novel.
Ms. Yan has also written numerous scripts based on her own and other authors' work, both in English and Chinese, including a script for a biopic on the iconic Peking opera star Mei Lanfang for director Chen Kaige (released as Forever Enthralled 梅兰芳) starring Leon Lai and Zhang Ziyi. She wrote the script for Dangerous Liaisons 危險關係, a Chinese-language film directed by South Korean director Hur Jin-ho and starring Zhang Ziyi, Jang Dong Gun and Cecilia Cheung. Her novel Fang Hua 芳华 is the basis a film of the same name (English title Youth) directed by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚. Her novel A City Called Macau 妈阁是座城 was made into a film directed by Li Shaohong 李少红, released in 2018.
Geling Yan a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and of France's Société des Gens de Lettres. She is affiliated with the Hollywood screenwriters' union, Writers' Guild of America, west, and is a former member of the Chinese Writers' Association (中国作家协会).
Geling Yan went to the United States at the end of 1989 for graduate study. She holds a Master's in Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from Columbia College, Chicago. To date she has published over 40 books in various editions in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, the UK and elsewhere; has won over 30 literary and film awards; and has had her work adapted or written scripts for numerous film, TV and radio works. Her works have been translated into twenty-one languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Uyghur, and Vietnamese, and her English-language novel The Banquet Bug/The Uninvited was translated into Chinese. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
She has been subject to an unofficial but effective ban in China since March 2020, when she wrote and promulgated an essay on the Chinese government's initial handling of COVID-19. Her future Chinese-language work will be published by her own publishing company, New Song Media GmbH.
For non-Chinese language publishing she is represented by Agence Astier-Pécher.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 5, 2023
Une nouvelle touchante et bien construite sur la rencontre d’une célèbre danseuse déchue par les autorités chinoises avec les fantasmes d’un jeune admirateur. L’écriture assume pleinement son esthétique cinématographique et une mise-en-scène qui s’approche presque du théâtre, et on l’imagine facilement joué. Un certain sentiment d’inachevé se fait tout de même ressentir dans la caractérisation des protagonistes, et une certaine restreinte empêche l’émotion de prendre l’ampleur qu’elle aurait pu atteindre.
Displaying 1 of 1 review