An artist travels to Communist China to learn the secrets of Chinese ink painting

Was it really reasonable to drop everything overnight and go off alone into the depths of Communist China in search of the forgotten secrets of ancient Chinese art? Fabienne Verdier never stopped to ask herself: in the early 1980s, the brilliant young Beaux-Arts student thought of nothing else but her desire to learn the art of painting and calligraphy – something that had been devastated by the Cultural Revolution.

And when, a foreigner in the province of Sichuan, she found herself in an art school run by the Party, she was determined to adjust to the situation: the language and the mistrust of the Chinese, the unbearable lack of privacy, the poverty and disease and an inquisitorial administrative system. Blocking the West from her mind, Fabienne Verdier became the pupil of great artists working at the margins of society, who introduced her to the secrets and techniques of an age-old art form.

This unique experience amounted to a true adventure story, leading eventually to Verdier’s fascinating artistic practice that combines east Asian inspiration with contemporary painting. Passenger of Silence, an autobiographical travel journal by turns gripping and wholly moving, is an expanded English edition of the original French language text published by Albin Michel in 2005. New colour photographs supplement the already richly illustrated volume, with over 100 images alongside a newly written glossary of aesthetic terms.