Gao Xingjian: The Quiet Literary Nobel Laureate of China
In spite of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000 and being lauded abroad, Chinese émigré Gao Xingjian receives little praise in his native country, in sharp contrast to the reception given to his countryman Mo Yan, after the latter won the coveted Literature prize.
Gao Xingjian, born in 1940 in China, is known as an experimental writer whose literary work was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature ‘for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama’. In his acclaimed novel Soul Mountain, Gao traces the path of an individual’s travels across the vast stretches of China, whilst also questioning the role of the individual in modern Chinese society.
Today, Gao is amongst the best-known of Chinese émigré writers; in addition to writing, his ink-and-wash paintings are particularly prized and show off Gao’s multifaceted talents.
From an early age, Gao’s mother, who had been involved in the Anti-Japanese Theatre during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), encouraged him in his pursuit of the arts. Under her tutelage and influence, Gao studied French at the Beijing Foreign Studies University; his stint as a translator was severely disrupted by the Cultural Revolution that sought to purge bourgeois elements in society through class struggle. As with most intellectuals with foreign links, his background was viewed with suspicion and in the 1960s and 1970s, as part of the ‘Down to the Countryside Movement’, he was forcibly sent to Anhui Province for re-education through manual labour.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Gao remained actively working as a translator and playwright attached to Beijing’s Theatre of Popular Art; since 1986, however, none of Gao’s plays have been performed in China and all of his works have been banned since 1989. Faced by renewed censorship, he emigrated to Germany then France in 1987. Despite living as an exile of his native country for the past 25 years, Gao’s works remain deeply rooted in his memories of China.
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