A short life of the author
Gao Xingjian (b. 1940) was born on 4 January 1940 in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, China. He studied French at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. During the Cultural Revolution, he burned a suitcase full of manuscripts. He worked at the Chinese Writers’ Association and Beijing People’s Art Theatre. He left China in 1987 and settled in Paris, becoming a French citizen in 1998.
Life and Career
Gao’s plays — including Absolute Signal (1982) and Bus Stop (1983) — introduced avant-garde techniques to Chinese theatre and drew government criticism. The Other Shore (1986) was banned.
Soul Mountain (Lingshan, 1990) — written over seven years, partly during a 15,000-kilometre journey through the mountains of Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan — is his masterwork. It alternates between first, second, and third person, blending travel writing, folklore, meditation, and fiction into an 81-chapter novel that is both a physical journey and a spiritual quest. It was published in Taipei, not Beijing.
One Man’s Bible (2000) — a companion novel about the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath — was more directly autobiographical.
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000 “for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama.” The Chinese government denounced the award as politically motivated and his works remain banned in mainland China.
Key Works
- Soul Mountain (1990)
- One Man’s Bible (2000)
Collecting Gao
Chinese-language firsts (Taipei editions) are the true firsts. Soul Mountain (2000, HarperCollins English translation by Mabel Lee) brings $15–$40.