Gao Xingjian
Encyclopedia
Gao Xingjian is a Chinese
-born novelist, playwright, critic, and painter. An émigré
to France since 1987, Gao was granted French citizenship in 1997. He is a noted translator (particularly of Samuel Beckett
and Eugène Ionesco
), screenwriter, stage director, and a celebrated painter.
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". 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.
. Born in Ganzhou
, Jiangxi, China, Gao has been a French citizen since 1997. In 1992 he was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
by the French government.
, and his mother was a member of the Young Men's Christian Association. His mother was once a playactress of Anti-Japanese Theatre during the Second Sino-Japanese War
. Under his mother's influence, Gao enjoyed painting, writing and theatre very much when he was a little boy. During his middle school years, he read lots of literature translated from the West, and he studied sketching
, ink and wash painting
, oil painting
and clay sculpture under the guidance of painter Yun Zongying .
In 1950, his family moved to Nanjing
, the capital city of Jiangsu Province. In 1952, Gao entered the Nanjing Number 10 Middle School (later renamed Jinling High School) which was the Middle School attached to Nanjing University
.
(BFSU) instead of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, although he was thought to be talented in art.
In 1962 Gao graduated from the Department of French, BFSU, and then entered the Chinese International Bookstore (中国国际书店), where he became a professional translator. During the 1970s, because of the Down to the Countryside Movement
, he went to and stayed in the countryside and did farm labour in Anhui Province. He taught as a Chinese teacher in Gangkou Middle School, Ningguo Xian, Anhui Province for a short time. In 1975, he was allowed to go back to Beijing and became the group leader of French translation for the magazine Construction in China (《中国建设》).
In 1977 Gao worked for the Committee of Foreign Relationship, Chinese Association of Writers. In May 1979, he visited Paris with Chinese writers including Ba Jin
, and served as a French-Chinese translator in the group. In 1980, Gao became a screenwriter and playwright for the Beijing People's Art Theatre
.
Gao is known as a pioneer of absurdist
drama in China, where Signal Alarm (《绝对信号》, 1982) and Bus Stop (《车站》, 1983) were produced during his term as resident playwright at the Beijing People's Art Theatre from 1981 to 1987. Influenced by European theatrical models, it gained him a reputation as an avant-garde writer. His other plays, The Primitive (1985) and The Other Shore
(《彼岸》, 1986), all openly criticised the government's state policies.
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.
, a city adjacent to Paris, France. The political Fugitives (1989), which makes reference to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
, resulted in all his works being banned from performance in China.
– in the 1970s, Gao Xingjian produced many plays, short stories, poems and critical pieces that he had eventually to burn to avoid the consequences of his dissident literature being discovered. Of the work he produced subsequently, he published no collections of poetry, being known more widely for his drama, fiction and essays. However, one short poem exists that represents a distinctively modern style akin to his other writings:
天葬台
Sky Burial
(April 13, 1986, Beijing)
. His exhibitions have included:
Zhu Rongji
delivered a congratulatory message to Gao when interviewed by the Hong Kong newspaper East Daily (《东方日报》):
Many Chinese writers comment that Gao's "Chinoiserie", or translatable works, have opened a new approach for Chinese modern literature to the Swedish Academy, and that his winning the Nobel Prize in its 100th anniversary year is a happy occasion for Chinese literature
.
In his article on Gao in the June 2008 issue of Muse
, a now-defunct Hong Kong magazine, Leo Lee Ou-fan (李歐梵) praises the use of Chinese language in Soul Mountain: 'Whether it works or not, it is a rich fictional language filled with vernacular speeches and elegant 文言 (classical) formulations as well as dialects, thus constituting a "heteroglossic" tapestry of sounds and rhythms that can indeed be read aloud (as Gao himself has done in his public readings).'
Before 2000, a dozen Chinese writers and scholars already predicted Gao's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, including Hu Yaoheng (Chinese:胡耀恒) Pan Jun (潘军) as early as 1999. Chinese literature (characters, language, etc.) has heavily influenced East Asian literature, and Chinese language elements are widely used in several languages including Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. In addition, with 20th-century Japanese writers having already won the Prize, many Chinese writers had predicted before 2000 that soon there would be a Literature winner with a Chinese background.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations of Gao Xingjian.
Note on references and citations
Gao is best known in French and Chinese literary circles, thus one can find many more relevant citations on the Chinese and French Wikipedia pages.
Zhonghua minzu
Zhonghua minzu , usually translated as Chinese ethnic groups or Chinese nationality, refers to the modern notion of a Chinese nationality transcending ethnic divisions, with a central identity for China as a whole...
-born novelist, playwright, critic, and painter. An émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
to France since 1987, Gao was granted French citizenship in 1997. He is a noted translator (particularly of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
), screenwriter, stage director, and a celebrated painter.
Gao was the recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
"for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama". 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
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
to avoid persecution.
Life
Gao's original home town is Taizhou, JiangsuTaizhou, Jiangsu
Taizhou is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu province of eastern China. Situated on the north bank of the Yangtze River, it borders Nantong to the east, Yancheng to the north and Yangzhou to the west....
. Born in Ganzhou
Ganzhou
Ganzhou is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. Its administrative seat is at Zhanggong .-History:...
, Jiangxi, China, Gao has been a French citizen since 1997. In 1992 he was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
by the French government.
Early years in Jiangxi and Jiangsu
Gao's father was a clerk in the Bank of ChinaBank of China
Bank of China Limited is one of the big four state-owned commercial banks of the People's Republic of China. It was founded in 1912 by the Government of the Republic of China, to replace the Government Bank of Imperial China. It is the oldest bank in China...
, and his mother was a member of the Young Men's Christian Association. His mother was once a playactress of Anti-Japanese Theatre during the Second Sino-Japanese War
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
. Under his mother's influence, Gao enjoyed painting, writing and theatre very much when he was a little boy. During his middle school years, he read lots of literature translated from the West, and he studied sketching
Sketch (drawing)
A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work...
, ink and wash painting
Ink and wash painting
Ink and wash painting is an East Asian type of brush painting also known as ink wash painting. Only black ink — the same as used in East Asian calligraphy — is used, in various concentrations....
, oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
and clay sculpture under the guidance of painter Yun Zongying .
In 1950, his family moved to Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, the capital city of Jiangsu Province. In 1952, Gao entered the Nanjing Number 10 Middle School (later renamed Jinling High School) which was the Middle School attached to Nanjing University
Nanjing University
Nanjing University , or Nanking University, is one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher learning in China...
.
Years in Beijing and Anhui
In 1957 Gao graduated, and, following his mother's advice, chose Beijing Foreign Studies UniversityBeijing Foreign Studies University
Beijing Foreign Studies University is the best foreign language and international studies university in China, often named "the cradle of diplomats" in the country.It is located in Weigongcun, Beijing, People's Republic of China...
(BFSU) instead of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, although he was thought to be talented in art.
In 1962 Gao graduated from the Department of French, BFSU, and then entered the Chinese International Bookstore (中国国际书店), where he became a professional translator. During the 1970s, because of the Down to the Countryside Movement
Down to the Countryside Movement
The Down to the Countryside Movement was a policy instituted in the People's Republic of China in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result of the anti-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous...
, he went to and stayed in the countryside and did farm labour in Anhui Province. He taught as a Chinese teacher in Gangkou Middle School, Ningguo Xian, Anhui Province for a short time. In 1975, he was allowed to go back to Beijing and became the group leader of French translation for the magazine Construction in China (《中国建设》).
In 1977 Gao worked for the Committee of Foreign Relationship, Chinese Association of Writers. In May 1979, he visited Paris with Chinese writers including Ba Jin
Ba Jin
Li Yaotang , courtesy name Feigan , is considered to be one of the most important and widely-read Chinese writers of the 20th century. He wrote under the pen name of Ba Jin , Pa Chin, Li Fei-Kan, Li Pei-Kan, Pa Kin, allegedly taking his pseudonym from Russian anarchists Bakunin and Kropotkin...
, and served as a French-Chinese translator in the group. In 1980, Gao became a screenwriter and playwright for the Beijing People's Art Theatre
Beijing People's Art Theatre
Beijing People's Art Theatre was founded in June 1952 by was drama master Cao Yu.Since its founding, the theater has produced nearly 300 dramas of different styles, from classic Chinese themes to an adaptation of Moliere....
.
Gao is known as a pioneer of absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
drama in China, where Signal Alarm (《绝对信号》, 1982) and Bus Stop (《车站》, 1983) were produced during his term as resident playwright at the Beijing People's Art Theatre from 1981 to 1987. Influenced by European theatrical models, it gained him a reputation as an avant-garde writer. His other plays, The Primitive (1985) and The Other Shore
The Other Shore (play)
-Translations:* 1997: as The Other Side: A Contemporary Drama Without Acts, tr. by Jo Riley, in An Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 1997, ISBN 0-19-586880-3...
(《彼岸》, 1986), all openly criticised the government's state policies.
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
Soul mountain
Soul Mountain is a novel by the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian. It was first published in Chinese in Taipei in 1990. The novel is loosely based on the author's journey in rural China, which was inspired by a false diagnosis of lung cancer. The novel is a part autobiographical, part fictional account...
(《灵山》). The part-memoir, part-novel, first published in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
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.
Years in Europe and Paris
By 1987, Gao had shifted to BagnoletBagnolet
Bagnolet is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Its inhabitants are called Bagnoletais.-History:...
, a city adjacent to Paris, France. The political Fugitives (1989), which makes reference to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
, resulted in all his works being banned from performance in China.
Dramas and performances
- 《绝对信号》 (Signal Alarm, 1982)
- 1982, in Beijing People's Art Theatre
- 1992, in Taiwan
- 《车站》 (Bus Stop, 1983)
- 1983, in Beijing People's Art Theatre
- 1984, in Yugoslavia
- 1986, in Hong Kong
- 1988, in Britain
- 1992, in Austria
- 1999, in Japan
- 《野人》 (Wild Men, "Savages", 1985)
- 1985, in Beijing People's Art Theatre
- 1988, in Hamburg, Germany
- 1990, in Hong Kong
- 《彼岸》 (The Other ShoreThe Other Shore (play)-Translations:* 1997: as The Other Side: A Contemporary Drama Without Acts, tr. by Jo Riley, in An Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 1997, ISBN 0-19-586880-3...
, 1986)- 1986, published in magazine Oct. (《十月》), Beijing
- 1990, in Taiwan
- 1994, translated into SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
by Göran MalmqvistGöran MalmqvistProfessor Nils Göran David Malmqvist is a Swedish linguist, member of the Swedish Academy , literary historian, sinologist and translator.-Biography:... - 1995, in The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
- 1997, translated into English by Jo RileyJo RileyJosephine Riley, usually Jo Riley, is a British writer, translator, theatre actor, and schoolteacher. Dr. Riley has written and translated several books about theatre arts, especially Chinese theatre...
as The Other Side - 1999, translated into English by Gilbert C. F. Fong
- 《躲雨》 (Shelter the Rain)
- 1981, in Sweden
- 《冥城》 (Dark City)
- 1988, in Hong Kong
- 《声声慢变奏》 (Transition of Sheng-Sheng-Man)
- 1989, in United States
- 《逃亡》 (Escape)
- 1990, published in magazine Today (《今天》)
- 1990, in Sweden
- 1992, in Germany, Poland
- 1994, in France
- 1997, in Japan, Africa
- 《生死界》 (Death Sector / Between Life and Death)
- 1991, published in magazine Today (《今天》)
- 1992, in France
- 1994, in Sydney, Italy
- 1996, in Poland
- 1996, in US
- 《山海经传》 (A Tale of Shan Hai JingShan Hai JingShan Hai Jing is a Chinese classic text, and a compilation of early geography and myth. Versions of the text have existed since the 4th century BC, and by the early Han Dynasty it had reached its final form. It is largely a fabled geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China as well as a...
)- 1992, published by Hong Kong Tian & Di Book Press (香港天地图书公司)
- 《对话与反诘》 (Dialogue & Rhetorical / Dialogue and Rebuttal)
- 1992, published in magazine Today (《今天》)
- 1992, in Vienna
- 1995, 1999, in Paris
- 《周末四重奏》 (Weekends Quartet / Weekend Quartet)
- 1999, published by Hong Kong New Century Press (香港新世纪出版社)
- 《夜游神》 (Nighthawk / Nocturnal Wanderer)
- 1999, in France
- 《八月雪》 (Snow in August)
- 2000, published by Taiwan Lianjing Press (台湾联经出版社)
- Dec 19, 2002, in Taipei
- 《高行健戏剧集》 (Collection)
- 《高行健戏剧六种》 (Collection, 1995, published by Taiwan Dijiao Press (台湾帝教出版社))
- 《行路难》 (Xinglunan)
- 《喀巴拉山》 (Mountain Kebala)
- 《独白》 (Soliloquy)
Fiction
- 《寒夜的星辰》 ("Constellation in a Cold Night", 1979)
- 《有只鸽子叫红唇儿》 ("Such a Pigeon called Red Lips", 1984) – a collection of novellas
- 《给我老爷买鱼竿》 (Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, 1986–1990) – a short story collection
- 《灵山》 (Soul MountainSoul mountainSoul Mountain is a novel by the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian. It was first published in Chinese in Taipei in 1990. The novel is loosely based on the author's journey in rural China, which was inspired by a false diagnosis of lung cancer. The novel is a part autobiographical, part fictional account...
, 1989) - 《一个人的圣经》 (One Man's BibleOne Man's BibleOne Man's Bible is a novel by Gao Xingjian. Mabel Lee created the English translation. The book stars an alter-ego of Gao who reflects on his previous experiences around the world...
, 1998)
Poem
While being forced to work as a peasant – a form of 'education' under the Cultural RevolutionCultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
– in the 1970s, Gao Xingjian produced many plays, short stories, poems and critical pieces that he had eventually to burn to avoid the consequences of his dissident literature being discovered. Of the work he produced subsequently, he published no collections of poetry, being known more widely for his drama, fiction and essays. However, one short poem exists that represents a distinctively modern style akin to his other writings:
天葬台
- 宰了 / 割了 / 烂捣碎了 / 燃一柱香 / 打一声呼哨 / 来了 / 就去了 / 来去都干干净净
Sky Burial
Sky burial
Sky burial, or ritual dissection, is a funerary practice in Tibet, wherein a human corpse was incised in certain locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements and animals – especially to predatory birds. The locations of preparation and sky burial are understood in the...
- Cut / Scalped / Pounded into pieces / Light an incense / Blow the whistle / Come / Gone / Out and out
(April 13, 1986, Beijing)
Other texts
- 《巴金在巴黎》 (Ba Jin in Paris, 1979, essay)
- 《现代小说技巧初探》 ("A Preliminary Examination of Modern Fictional Techniques", 1981)
- 《谈小说观和小说技巧》 (1983)
- 《没有主义》 (Without -isms, translated by W. Lau, D. Sauviat & M. Williams // Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia. Vols 27 & 28, 1995–96
- 《对一种现代戏剧的追求》 (1988, published by China Drama Press) (中国戏剧出版社))
- 《高行健·2000年文库——当代中国文库精读》 (1999, published by Hong Kong Mingpao Press) (香港明报出版社)
Paintings
Gao is a renowned painter, especially for his ink and wash paintingInk and wash painting
Ink and wash painting is an East Asian type of brush painting also known as ink wash painting. Only black ink — the same as used in East Asian calligraphy — is used, in various concentrations....
. His exhibitions have included:
- Le goût de l'encre, Paris, Hazan 2002
- Return to Painting, New York, Perennial 2002
- “无我之境·有我之境”, Singapore, Nov 17, 2005 – Feb 7, 2006
- The End of the World, Germany, Mar 29, – May 27, 2007
Works in English
- Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather, short stories, trans. Mabel Lee, Flamingo, London, 2004, ISBN 0-00-717038-6
- Soul Mountain, novel, trans. Mabel Lee, Flamingo, London, 2001, ISBN 0-00-711923-2
- One Man's Bible, novel, trans. Mabel Lee, Flamingo, ISBN 0-06-621132-8
- The Other Shore, plays, trans. G. Fong, Chinese University Press, ISBN 962-201-862-9
- The Other Side, play, trans. Jo RileyJo RileyJosephine Riley, usually Jo Riley, is a British writer, translator, theatre actor, and schoolteacher. Dr. Riley has written and translated several books about theatre arts, especially Chinese theatre...
, in An Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama, 1997, ISBN 0-19-586880-3 - Silhouette/Shadow: The Cinematic Art of Gao Xingjian, film/images/poetry, ed. Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Contours, Paris, ISBN 978-981-05-9207-3
Official response from mainland China
The PremierPremier
Premier is a title for the head of government in some countries and states.-Examples by country:In many nations, "premier" is used interchangeably with "prime minister"...
Zhu Rongji
Zhu Rongji
Zhū Róngjī is a prominent Chinese politician who served as the Mayor and Party chief in Shanghai between 1987 and 1991, before serving as Vice-Premier and then the fifth Premier of the People's Republic of China from March 1998 to March 2003.A tough administrator, his time in office saw the...
delivered a congratulatory message to Gao when interviewed by the Hong Kong newspaper East Daily (《东方日报》):
- Q.: What's your comment on Gao's winning Nobel Prize ?
- A.: I am very happy that works written in Chinese can win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Chinese characters have a history of several thousand years, and Chinese language has an infinite charm, (I) believe that there will be Chinese works winning Nobel Prizes again in the future. Although it's a pity that the winner this time is a French citizen instead of Chinese, I still would like to send my congratulations both to the winner and the French Department of Culture. (Original words: 我很高兴用汉语写作的文学作品获诺贝尔文学奖。汉字有几千年的历史，汉语有无穷的魅力，相信今后还会有汉语或华语作品获奖。很遗憾这次获奖的是法国人不是中国人，但我还是要向获奖者和法国文化部表示祝贺。)
Comments from Chinese writers
Gao's work has led to fierce discussion among Chinese writers, both positive and negative.Many Chinese writers comment that Gao's "Chinoiserie", or translatable works, have opened a new approach for Chinese modern literature to the Swedish Academy, and that his winning the Nobel Prize in its 100th anniversary year is a happy occasion for Chinese literature
Chinese literature
Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...
.
In his article on Gao in the June 2008 issue of Muse
Muse (Hong Kong Magazine)
Muse is a bilingual Hong Kong-based multimedia publisher specializing in content related to Hong Kong's art and culture scene.. Until December 2010, Muse published an award-winning monthly arts and culture magazine...
, a now-defunct Hong Kong magazine, Leo Lee Ou-fan (李歐梵) praises the use of Chinese language in Soul Mountain: 'Whether it works or not, it is a rich fictional language filled with vernacular speeches and elegant 文言 (classical) formulations as well as dialects, thus constituting a "heteroglossic" tapestry of sounds and rhythms that can indeed be read aloud (as Gao himself has done in his public readings).'
Before 2000, a dozen Chinese writers and scholars already predicted Gao's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, including Hu Yaoheng (Chinese:胡耀恒) Pan Jun (潘军) as early as 1999. Chinese literature (characters, language, etc.) has heavily influenced East Asian literature, and Chinese language elements are widely used in several languages including Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. In addition, with 20th-century Japanese writers having already won the Prize, many Chinese writers had predicted before 2000 that soon there would be a Literature winner with a Chinese background.
Honors
- 1992, Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des LettresOrdre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
- 2000, Nobel Prize in LiteratureNobel Prize in LiteratureSince 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
- 2006, Lions Award, by the New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
(NYPL) at Library Lions Benefit event
Trivia
- Gao Xingjian's Swedish translator Göran MalmqvistGöran MalmqvistProfessor Nils Göran David Malmqvist is a Swedish linguist, member of the Swedish Academy , literary historian, sinologist and translator.-Biography:...
, is a member of the Swedish Academy and was responsible for the translation to Swedish for Nobel Prize consideration. Ten days before the award decision was made public, Gao Xingjian changed his Swedish publisher (from Forum to Atlantis), but Göran Malmqvist has denied leaking information about the award http://www.literaturseiten.de/xingjian.htm. - Gao is one of the two Nobel laureates to give an Nobel acceptance speech in Chinese so far (after Samuel C. C. TingSamuel C. C. TingSamuel Chao Chung Ting is an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1976, with Burton Richter, for discovering the subatomic J/ψ particle...
in 1976). - Gao has been the center of an artistic piece of video art. The art exhibit is entitled 'Voom' and was presented at the University of IowaUniversity of IowaThe University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
art museum in March 2008.
Further reading
- The Voice of One in the Wilderness critical essay on the works of Gao Xingjian by Olivier Burckhardt, PN Review #137, 27:3 (Jan–Feb 2001) 28–32, shorter version also published in Quadrant. 44:4 (2000) 54–57, and anthologized in Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 167, ed. Jeff Hunter, Gale Publishing, (2003) 200–204
- Trees on the Mountain: an Anthology of New Chinese Writing by Stephen C Soong and John Minford. – Hong Kong: The Chinese U.P., copilot 1984.
- Gao Xingjian: Bio, excerpts, interviews and articles in the archives of the Prague Writers' Festival
- Gao Xingjian, le moderniste // La Chine aujourd'hui NO 41, September 1986.
- World Literature with Chinese Characteristics: On A Novel by Gao Xingjian by Torbjoern Lodén, // Stockholm journal of East Asian Studies 4, 1993.
- Chinese Writing and Exile by Gregory B. Lee – Center of East Asian Studies at the University of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, 1993. - Gao Xingjian, the Voice of the Individual // Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies, 6, 1995.
- Without Politics: Gao Xingjian on Literary Creation by Mabel Lee // Stockholm journal OF East Asian Studies 6, 1995.
- "The Challenge to the 'Official Discourse' in Gao Xingjian's Early Fiction" by Deborah Sauviat. First-class Honours thesis. University of Sydney, 1996.
- Gao Xingjian and "Soul Mountain: Ambivalent Storytelling, Robert Nagle, Houston, Texas, 2002.
- Pronouns as Protagonists: Gao Xingjian's Lingshan as Autobiography by Mabel Lee// Colloquium of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics at the University of SydneyUniversity of SydneyThe University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
. Draft Paper, Oct. 3–4, 1996. - Personal Freedom in Twentieth Century China: Reclaiming the Self in Yang LianYang LianYang Lian is a Chinese poet associated with the Misty Poets and also with the Searching for Roots school. He was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1955 and raised in Beijing, where he attended primary school....
's Yi and Gao Xingjian's Lingshan by Mabel Lee // History, Literature and Society. – Sydney: Sydney Studies in Society and Culture 15, 1996. - Outer one plus près you réel: dialogues sur l'écriture 1994–1997, entretiens avec Denis Bourgeois /trad. par Noeel et Liliane Dutrait. – La route of d'Aigues: l'Aube, 1997.
- Gao Xingjian's Lingshan/Soul Mountain: ModernismModernismModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and the Chinese Writer by Mabel Lee, // Heat 4, 1997. - Gao Xingjian, le peintre de l'âme by Robert Calvet, // Brèves No 56, more hiver 1999.
- Towards A Modern Zen Theatre: Gao Xingian and Chinese Theatre Experimentalism. Henry Y.H. Zhao, – London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 2000.
- Chinese Writers on Writing, (a chapter excerpted from Soul Mountain) (Trinity University Press, 2010).
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations of Gao Xingjian.
See also
- Chinese literatureChinese literatureChinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...
Note on references and citations
Gao is best known in French and Chinese literary circles, thus one can find many more relevant citations on the Chinese and French Wikipedia pages.