Xingjian Gao

He graduated from the French department there, but it would be many years before he started to gain recognition for his writing. He first rose to fame as screen writer and playwright for the Beijing People's Art Theatre in 1981. His style was one of absurdist drama, something new to Chinese culture at the time. His later works at the theater, such as The Primitive (1985) and The Other Shore (1986), were critical of Chinese's Communist government policies. One of his biggest works, the political drama Fugitives (1989) which was published in France, made reference to student protests at Tiananmen Square that year. The Chinese government has banned all of his works from the country since then. Since then, his works tend to be highly regarded in Europe and in Western civilization, but less celebrated and met with trepidation in his native China. Xingjian Gao's most famous literary work is Soul Mountain, a part-memoir and part-novel which uses shifting narrative voices that details his travels amongst Chinese minorities in the Sichuan province. Originally published in 1990 in Taiwan, but translated to English in 2000. The work eventually helped him win the 2000 Nobel Prize in literature. His works tend to be fiercely debated in China, both positively and negatively. Some contend that he has opened new avenues to explore for modern Chinese literature. As a result, his Nobel Prize should be seen as a cultural positive for China. Read Less