Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjianis a Chinese émigré 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, screenwriter, stage director, and a celebrated painter. In 1998, Gao was granted French citizenship...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth4 January 1940
CountryChina
literature subservient
Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.
art philosophical expression
Language is inherently not concerned with logic. As an expression of the psychological activities of humankind, it simply follows a linear process as it seeks actualisation. Moreover, it does not obey the objective concepts of time and space that belong to the physical world. When the discussion of time and space is imported into linguistic art from scientific aims and research methods, that linguistic art is entirely reduced to trifling pseudo-philosophical issues.
way language cliche
The enterprise of describing something in language that has never been described before is a very difficult thing to do. When you decide to do away with old cliches or old phraseologies, and to come up with a new way of saying something, it's extremely difficult.
memories trying filters
You should know that there is little you can seek in this world, that there is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate. When you try to relate them, there are only sentences, the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures.
men looks intention
Men always look differently at women, even if it's not your intention it is wrongly interpreted as such.
believe fate i-believe
I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
art thinking lunatic
Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
strong hero want
I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
women views world
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.
adversity problem reason
Everyone has to have either this or that problem, if he can't find any problem, he loses all reason for living.
hero people tragedy
If everyone is a hero, then disasters and atrocities lose their meaning. It's only when certain people are heroes and others are not that these tragedies and disasters that mankind faces take on meaning.
listening needs language
The human need for language is not simply for the transmission of meaning, it is at the same time listening to and affirming a person's existence.
worry heaven world
You contemplate and you wander without any worries, between heaven and earth, in your own private world, and in this way you acquire supreme freedom.
games miracle buttons
Once the buttons are undone, you know how it'll all end. It's all in the game, there are no miracles.