Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, also rendered from Chinese as A Fishing Rod for My Grandpa, is a 2004 collection of six short stories by the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian. All of the stories were originally written between 1983 and 1990. The stories were translated to English by Mabel Lee.

The book was published in New York by HarperCollins, in 2004, with ISBN 0-06-057555-7, and in London as Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather, translation by Mabel Lee, flamingo, London, 2004, ISBN 0-00-717038-6

Plot

In "The Temple", the narrator is on his honeymoon and mysteriously anxious despite being "deliriously happy" during his and his wife's outing. The story "In the Park" has two friends from childhood meet after many years and then part once more. "Cramp" has a man about a kilometer from shore on the verge of drowning barely survive, only to have no one notice he's been gone. "The Accident" portrays a cyclist being hit by a bus and the pedestrians' momentary reaction to the event. In the title story, a man sees a fiberglass fishing rod in a store window and is reminded of the times he went fishing and hunting with his grandfather. "In an Instant" traces the lives of three people on a typical day.