UCLA Center for East Asian Studies
Gao Xingjian Receives 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature
October 12, 2000
Nobel Committee || News Reports || Earlier Web Reviews || His Painting ||
English Language Bibliography (and a selection) || Scholarly Looks at His WritingNobel Prize Committee's Announcement
English || Chinese (trad.) || Chinese (simplified)
"The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2000 goes to the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian 'for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama.'
"In the writing of Gao Xingjian literature is born anew from the struggle of the individual to survive the history of the masses. He is a perspicacious sceptic who makes no claim to be able to explain the world. He asserts that he has found freedom only in writing."English Bibliography || Chinese Bibliography (trad./.pdf file) || Chinese Bibliography (simplifie./.pdf file)
BBC (UK)
10/12/00 The 30 minute East Asia Today program for Thursday, October 12, 2000 includes a six minute segment on Gao Xingjian and this award. (Free Real Audio Player required.)
The BBC Chinese news website has additional information on the Chinese government's reaction to the award and about Gao himself. [Note, your browser must be configured to display Chinese characters for these excerpts and the full article.]
10/13/00 "北京官方就旅法中国作家高行健获得今年年诺贝尔文学奖开始作出反应，指此举有政治动机。
"中国外交部在一份声明中表示，高行健获奖再次反映出诺贝尔文学奖已被用做政治目的，因此不值得发表评论." full story
10/12/00 "高行健1962年毕业于北京外语学院法语系，在国际书店担任法语翻译。文化大革命期间，他被派到农村教书。之后他在北京发表过多部戏剧作品，不过受到中国共产党政府的批评。
"高行健在1978年发表第一篇小说，80年代创作了著名抽象派小说《车站》。1986年，《另岸》在中国被禁，他的戏剧之后便一直没有再在中国舞台上演出." full story
China Daily (China)
10/13/00 "This year's Nobel Prize season wrapped up Friday with the most coveted award, the Peace Prize, awarded to South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, but as usual, Americans dominated the list of laureates honoured in 2000...
"With well-funded research institutes and universities and a reputation as the world leader in scientific research, the United States is able to attract the top minds and thereby take home the lion's share of Nobel Prizes.
"Despite the US dominance, the Asian continent made a strong showing this year, snatching the two most prestigious prizes, for peace and literature, and a share in the chemistry prize.
"Kim Dae-Jung was bestowed the Peace Prize for his human rights campaigning and efforts to reconcile North and South Korea, while Chinese-born playwright and author Gao Xianjing was honoured with the Literature Prize." full story
CNN (US)
10/12/00 "Chinese novelist Gao Xingjian has won the Nobel Prize in literature for his 'bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity,' and becomes the first Chinese writer to win the prestigious prize." full story
10/12/00 "Gao Xingjian calls it 'a miracle.'
"The self-exiled Chinese author and dramatist, whose work is banned in his homeland, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for a collection of fiction and plays that, according to the Swedish Academy, is inspired by 'the struggle of the individual to survive the history of the masses.'" full storyExcerpts from Soul Mountain (also available from MSNBC)
Los Angeles Times (US)
10/13/00 "... Howard Goldblatt, a professor of East Asian literature, spoke to the significance of a Chinese author winning a Nobel: 'It's become a national obsession to a certain degree. I think that any sort of international recognition in whatever field is important to them, to show their standing in the world community. And a country that large, with a long literary tradition, for them to have been frozen out so long is a bit of a slap in the face, I think.'" full story
10/16/00 "For the many Chinese who have long hoped that the Nobel Prize in literature would be awarded to a Chinese cultural luminary, thereby bringing recognition to their country's rich literary traditions, last week's winner came as a rude shock.
"What they got, with the selection of experimental playwright and novelist Gao Xingjian, was a writer whose works few Chinese know, whom the government considers subversive and whom the domestic media have largely been banned from discussing....
"'We should congratulate him for his award,' said Shu Yi, head of the recently opened National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature in Beijing. But he added: 'The award is stimulating and provocative for China. It makes us feel awkward--we don't know whether to laugh or cry.'" full story
National Public Radio (US)
Hear Lynn Neary's report prior to the issuing of the award. She discusses geopolitical factors in the awarding of the prize. The report includes a brief interview with Princeton University Chinese literature specialist Perry Link. (Free Real Audio Player required.)
New York Times (US)
10/13/00 "'In some ways he [Gao Xingjian] represents what might be called a global vision,' said Leo Ou-fan Lee, a professor of Chinese literature at Harvard University. 'His relationship with China is not limited to memory, history or politics. He uses all these themes as metaphors, indexes to a much more personal search for meaning.'
"Mr. Gao, who now holds French citizenship and says he deliberately stays out of Chinese politics so that he will have the freedom to think as he pleases, writes as fluently in French as in Chinese. 'He's very unusual because most contemporary Chinese writers simply are not capable of writing in two languages,' Mr. Lee said. 'He's probably China's first bilingual writer.'" full story
People's Daily (Renmin Ribao, China)
10/13/00 English edition: "It seems that the Nobel Committee has its political criterion for giving the prize for literature, instead of doing so from the angle of literature, the Chinese Writers Association (CWA) said Friday.
"This shows that the Nobel Prize for Literature has virtually been used for political purposes and thus has lost its authority, said a person in charge of the CWA in an interview with Xinhua.
"The CWA leader made the remarks when commenting on the Nobel Committee's awarding of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature to Chinese-French writer Gao Xingjian on Thursday.
"He said China boasts many world-famous literary works and writers, about which the Nobel Committee knows little.
"Born in 1940 in Jiangxi Province, east China, Gao Xingjian went abroad in 1987 and became a French national afterwards." story10/13/00 Chinese edition "中国作家协会有关负责人在接受新华社记者采访时说，中国有许多举世瞩目的优秀文学作品和文学家，诺贝尔文学奖评委会对此并不了解。看来，诺贝尔文学奖此举不是从文学角度评选，而是有其政治标准。这表明，诺贝尔文学奖实质上已被用于政治目的，失去了权威性." full story
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
10/13/00 "Born in 1940 in Ganxian, Jiangxi province, Gao studied French in the early 1960s in Beijing and began to write during the Cultural Revolution. However, he burned his manuscripts after his wife denounced him to authorities."'His wife told people from the Government that he had been writing literary things at home, and writing literature then was very dangerous,' said exiled poet Bei Ling. 'He is a writer who has suffered a lot of persecution.'" full story (free registration required)
Earlier Discussions of Gao Xingjian's Work
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Late Night Live
Gao Xingjian was interviewed in May 2000 about his book Soul Mountain.
The Age.com
The Age.com published a review of Gao's Soul Mountain in August 2000.
"Gao Xingjian was prominent on the Chinese literary scene in the early 1980s as a playwright. In 1982, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, a diagnosis that was later proved mistaken. The following year, the Communist Party criticised Gao's works as ``spiritual pollution''. The double shock of public condemnation and the experience of confronting his own mortality inspired him to embark on a journey that would take him five months and 15,000 kilometres into the heart of China, and which resulted in the epic Soul Mountain.
"As we travel with Gao Xingjian along the Yangtze, we meet monks, recluses, folk singers, a toothless old woman who was once the local beauty and learn about the mythical ``tiny people'' who cavort nude in people's throats, living off mucous and sneaking away when their hosts doze to report on them to the Heavenly Emperor." full review
Asian American Theatre Revue (US)
Bert Weschler reviewed a 1997 New York performance of Gao's Between Life and Death.
The Road to East Asia (Canada)
Kevin Hodgson, a York University student, wrote in 1996 about a character in Gao's Bus Stop, Glasses, comparing him to famed dissident Liu Binyan.
Isabelle Wai, York professor and founding editor of The Road to East Asia interviewed Mabel Lee, translator of Soul Mountain and a now retired professor of Chinese literature.
Bibliography (from the Modern Chinese Literature and Culture website based at Ohio State University and other sources)
"Alarm Signal." In Shiao-Ling Yu, ed., Chinese Drama after the Cultural Revolution, 1979-1989. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996, 159-232.
"Between Life and Death." Tr. Gilbert C. F. Fung. In The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. HK: The Chinese University Press, 1999.
"The Bus Stop" (excerpt), translated by Geremie Barme, Renditions 19-20 (Spring/Autumn 1983): 379-386.
"The Bus Stop." In Shiao-Ling Yu, ed., Chinese Drama after the Cultural Revolution, 1979-1989. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996, 233-90.
"Bus Stop." In Haiping Yan, ed., Theater and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Armonk: M.E.Sharpe, 1998, 3-59."Dialogue and Rebuttal." Tr. Gilbert C. F. Fung. In The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. HK: The Chinese University Press, 1999.
"Fugitives: A Modern Tragedy in Two Acts." Tr. Gregory Lee. In Gregory Lee, ed., Chinese Writing and Exile. Chicago: Center for East Asian Studies, The University of Chicago, 1993, 89-137."Nocturnal Wanderer." Tr. Gilbert C. F. Fung. In The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. HK: The Chinese University Press, 1999.
The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. Tr. Gilbert C. F. Fong. HK: The Chinese University Press, 1999. [includes: The Other Shore (1986), Between Life and Death (1991), Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992), Nocturnal Wanderer (1993), and Weekend Quartet (1995)].
"The Other Shore." Tr. Gilbert C. F. Fung. In The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. HK: The Chinese University Press, 1999.
"The Other Side." Tr. Jo Riley. In Martha Cheung and Jane Lai, eds., An Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. NY: Oxoford UP, 1997, 152-183.Soul Mountain. Tr. Mabel Lee. HarperCollins, 2000.
"Weekend Quartet." Tr. Gilbert C. F. Fung. In The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. HK: The Chinese University Press, 1999.
"Contemporary Technique and National Character in Fiction,"
Translated by Ng Mau-sang, Renditions 19-20 (Spring/Autumn 1983): 55-58.
Gao Xingjian is also an accomplished painter.
Cercle-Bleu (France)
This page is devoted to a May-June, 2000 exhibition of Gao's paintings.
Pace University's Schimmel Center for the Arts
The Center hosted a 1997 exhibition which included Gao's "Legendes" (1992) and "L'hiver" (1992).
Gao Xingjian exhibited his paintings in 1996 in Metz (France)
In 1996, officials in Metz welcomed Gao and an exhibition of his paintings. The site includes one of his paintings, a 1994 work entitled "Retour." website
Scholarly Looks at Gao Xingjian's Writing
Mabel Lee (University of Sydney professor and the translator of Soul Mountain) on Gao Xingjian's Work
Lee, Mabel. "Without Politics: Gao Xingjian on Literary Creation", The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies, 6 (1995), pp. 82-101.
--------. "Walking Out of Other People's Prisons: Liu Zaifu and Gao Xingjian on Chinese Literature in the 1990s", Asian & African Studies, 5.1 (1996): 98-112.
--------. "Personal Freedom in Twentieth Century China: Reclaiming the Self in Yang Lian's Yi and Gao Xingjian's Lingshan", Mabel Lee and Michael Wilding (eds), History, Literature and Society: Essays in Honour of S. N. Mukherjee (Sydney Association for Studies in Culture and Society, Sydney, 1997), pp. 133-155.
--------. "Gao Xingjian's Lingshan/Soul Mountain: Modernism and the Chinese Writer", HEAT 4 (1997): 128-157.
--------. "Gao Xingjian's Dialogue with Two Dead Poets from Shaoxing: Xu Wei and Lu Xun" in Raoul D. Findeisen and Robert H. Gassman (eds), Autumn Floods: Essays in Honour of Márian Gálik (Bern: Lang, 1998), pp. 401-414.
Translations
Excerpt from Chapter 27 of Gao Xingjian's novel Lingshan, in AliTra (Australian Literary Translator's Association) Newsletter, November, 1995.
Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Gao Xingjian's novel Lingshan, in AliTra (Australian Literary Translator's Association) Newsletter, August-September 1996.
Other Works on Gao Xingjian
Anon. "News Brief: A Traditionalist." Asian Art News, vol. 8, no. 4 (Jul/Aug 1998), p. 15.
Lodén, Torbjörn. "World Literature with Chinese Characteristics: On a Novel by Gao Xingjian," The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies, 4 (1993).
Millichap, John. "Gao Xingjian at Alisan Fine Arts" (review). Asian Art News, vol. 8, no. 5 (9-10/98), p. 83.
Sen, M. "The Theater of the Absurd in Mainland China: Gao Xingjian, The Bus Stop," Issues & Studies, Aug. 1989, 25.8:138-148.
Tay, William. "Avant-Garde Theater in Post-Mao China: The Bus Stop by Gao Xingjian," 111-118 in Goldblatt, Howard (ed.). Worlds Apart: Recent Chinese Writing and Its Audiences. Armonk, NY : M. E. Sharpe, 1990. x, 253 pp..
Zou,Jiping. Gao Xingjian and Chinese Experimental Theatre. Ph.D. dissertation. U of Illinois, Urbana, 1994.
