(Soul Moutain probes the human soul with an uncommon direc...)
Soul Moutain probes the human soul with an uncommon directness and candor and delights in the freedom of the imagination to expand the notion of the individual self.
(Snow in August is based on the life of Huineng (AD 633-71...)
Snow in August is based on the life of Huineng (AD 633-713), the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism in Tang Dynasty China. Packed with the myriad sights and sounds of both the Eastern and Western theatrical traditions, the play exudes wonder and mysticism. The many koan cases and the story of Huineng's enlightenment afford the audience fascinating vignettes of Gao's vision of life and existence ¢w an awareness of the Void and the need for a personal peace with oneself.
(Inspired by the author's personal trauma in Europe and Ma...)
Inspired by the author's personal trauma in Europe and Mao's China, these two plays scrutinize the psychology of self-proclaimed heroes and the consequences of dangerous revolutions that turn literature and art into hostages of politics, fashions, and trends.
(These essays embody an argument for literature as a unive...)
These essays embody an argument for literature as a universal human endeavor rather than one defined and limited by national boundaries. Gao believes in the need for the writer to stand apart from collective movements, regardless of whether these are engineered by political parties or driven by economic or other forces not related to literature. This collection presents Gao's innovative ideas on aesthetics, and it constitutes the very kernel of his thinking on literary creation.
(These six stories by Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian tran...)
These six stories by Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian transport the reader to moments where the fragility of love and life, and the haunting power of memory, are beautifully unveiled.
(The present collection contains five of Gao Xingjian's mo...)
The present collection contains five of Gao Xingjian's most recent works: The Other Shore (1986), Between Life and Death (1991), Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992), Nocturnal Wanderer (1993), and Weekend Quartet (1995).
Gao Xingjian is a Chinese-born French playwright, author and critic. Xingjian was also renowned as a stage director and as an artist. He produces poetic and complex ink-on-paper paintings.
Background
Gao Xingjian was born on January 4, 1940, in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China. Gao Xingjian grew up during the aftermath of the Japanese invasion, his father was a bank official and his mother was an amateur actress who stimulated young Gao’s interest in the theatre and writing.
After suffering political persecution and being forced to destroy his paintings during the Cultural Revolution, Gao fled China to begin a life in exile in 1987, later becoming a French citizen.
Education
From 1957 to 1962, Gao Xingjian attended Beijing Foreign Languages Institute (now Beijing Foreign Studies University).
Following the university, Gao found work as a translator with both China Reconstructs, a journal, and the Chinese Writers Association. During this period Gao began producing a sizeable body of literary work, but fear of government authorities compelled him to destroy these writings.
In the repressive Cultural Revolution that ensued, Gao worked on farms and served as a teacher in some of China’s less developed regions. While laboring in these rural areas he persevered as a writer but was forced to destroy these writings as well. In 1977 Gao worked for the Committee of Foreign Relationship, Chinese Association of Writers. In 1980, Gao became a screenwriter and playwright for the Beijing People's Art Theatre. In 1981 Gao obtained an appointment to the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, and during the next few years, he proved accomplished, if controversial, playwright.
During the period 1980-87 he published short stories, essays and dramas in literary magazines in China and also four books: Premier essai sur les techniques du roman moderne/A Preliminary Discussion of the Art of Modern Fiction (1981) which gave rise to a violent polemic on “modernism”, the narrative A Pigeon Called Red Beak (1985), Collected Plays (1985) and In Search of a Modern Form of Dramatic Representation (1987).
Several of his experimental and pioneering plays – inspired in part by Brecht, Artaud and Beckett – were produced at the Theatre of Popular Art in Beijing: his theatrical debut with Signal d’alarme/Signal Alarm (1982) was a tempestuous success, and the absurd drama which established his reputation Arrêt de bus/Bus Stop (1983) was condemned during the campaign against “intellectual pollution” (described by one eminent member of the party as the most pernicious piece of writing since the foundation of the People’s Republic); L’Homme sauvage/Wild Man (1985) also gave rise to heated domestic polemic and international attention.
In 1986 L’autre rive/The Other Shore was banned and since then none of his plays have been performed in China. In order to avoid harassment he undertook a ten-month walking-tour of the forest and mountain regions of Sichuan Province, tracing the course of the Yangzi river from its source to the coast. In 1987 he left China and settled down a year later in Paris as a political refugee.
After the massacre on the Square of Heavenly Peace in 1989 he left the Chinese Communist Party. After publication of La fuite/Fugitives, which takes place against the background of this massacre, he was declared persona non grata by the regime and his works were banned. In the summer of 1982, Gao Xingjian had already started working on his prodigious novel La Montagne de l’Âme/Soul Mountain, in which – by means of an odyssey in time and space through the Chinese countryside – he enacts an individual’s search for roots, inner peace and liberty. This is supplemented by the more autobiographical Le Livre d’un homme seul/One Man’s Bible.
Gao Xingjian paints in ink and has had some thirty international exhibitions and provides the cover illustrations for his own books.
Gao’s paintings are works of art that bear an original and unique artistic vision that is equal to his outstanding literary oeuvre. Gao’s creation of space and depth are not direct observations but spatial dimensions felt by his inner self. His proficiency in using Chinese brushstrokes and applying ink to create works on paper and canvas has created and inspired new directions in Chinese ink painting. He often portrays his inner mindscape, leading the audience to a world invisible to the human eye.
Quotations:
“Painting begins where language fails.”
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"Gao is best known for daring plays that combine a modernist sensibility with traditional elements from Chinese drama." - Sarah Lyall
Connections
Gao was married to Wang Xuejun, but they divorced.