Gao Xingjian
Gao was the recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature “for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama”.[1] Gao’s drama is considered to be fundamentally absurdist in nature and avant-garde in his native China. His prose works tend to be less celebrated in China but are highly regarded elsewhere in Europe and the West. He once burnt a suitcase packed with manuscripts during the Cultural Revolution to avoid persecution.
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His mother was once a playactress of Anti-Japanese Theatre during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
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His other plays, The Primitive (1985) and The Other Shore (《彼岸》, 1986), all openly criticised the government’s (China’s) state policies.
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In 1986 Gao was misdiagnosed with lung cancer, and he began a 10-month trek along the Yangtze, which resulted in his novel Soul Mountain (《灵山》). The part-memoir, part-novel, first published in Taiwan in 1989, mixes literary genres and utilizes shifting narrative voices. It has been specially cited by the Swedish Nobel committee as “one of those singular literary creations that seem impossible to compare with anything but themselves.” The book details his travels from Sichuan province to the coast, and life among Chinese minorities such as the Qiang, Miao, and Yi peoples on the fringes of Han Chinese civilization.
