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
strong hero want
I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
want sand
The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything.
writing profound want
I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
voice want humans
When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
creative trends want
I decided that I did not want to follow any of these ideologies or trends, because these also exerted a kind of pressure, and obstructed absolute creative freedom.
want compromise ifs
If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.
mind
When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.
crushes experience grouping mass taught
Experience has taught me that any kind of political grouping is oppressive. It's the blind mass that crushes the individual.
Writing eases my suffering... writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.
both chinese close grand link literature painting western
In the grand tradition, both Chinese and Western painting have a close link with literature,
lying trying alive
With the beginning of life, comes the thirst for truth, whereas the ability to lie is gradually acquired in the process of trying to stay alive.
eye men names
If literature is to transcend political interference and return to being a testimony of man and his existential predicament, it needs first to break away from ideology. To be without "isms," is to return to the individual and to return to viewing the world through the eyes of the writer, an individual who relies on his own perceptions and does not act as a spokesman for the people. The people already have rulers and election campaigners speaking in their name.
beautiful spiritual literature
Literary revolution and revolutionary literature did not create a beautiful new world but instead divested literature of its basic nature, promoted violence, and, by resorting to linguistic violence, made a battlefield of this domain of spiritual freedom.
loneliness reflection ability
Loneliness is a prerequisite for freedom. Freedom depends on the ability to reflect, and reflection can only begin when one is alone.