Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian (Chinese: 高行健; Mandarin: [káu ɕĭŋ tɕiɛ̂n]; born January 4, 1940) is a Chineseémigré novelist, playwright, and critic who in 2000 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity.” He is also a noted translator (particularly of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco), screenwriter, stage director, and a celebrated painter. In 1998, Gao was granted French citizenship.

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.

Early life

Gao's original home town is Taizhou, Jiangsu. Born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China in 1940, Gao has been a French citizen since 1998. In 1992 he was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

Early years in Jiangxi and Jiangsu

Gao's father was a clerk in the Bank of 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. 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 (simplified Chinese: 郓宗嬴; traditional Chinese: 鄆宗嬴; pinyin: Yùn Zōngyíng).

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Famous quotes by Gao Xingjian:

"Writing eases my suffering... writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence."
"When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence."
"Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature."
"Love is so holy, so confusing. It makes a man anxious, tormented. Love, how can I define it?"
"For me, writing [was] a question of survival...I could not trust anyone, even my family. The atmosphere was so poisoned. People even in your own family could turn you in."
"As a male writer, women are always what men pursue, and their world is always a mystery. So I always tried to present as many views as possible on women's worlds."
"In the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the authors. If the authors had not achieved self-affirmation while writing, how could they have continued to write?"
"In the grand tradition, both Chinese and Western painting have a close link with literature,"
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