Gao Xingjian

Chinese novelist and playwright (1940- ) · China · Writers

Gao Xingjian is read about 372 times a day, in 92 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.

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He wrote plays the Chinese government wouldn't let finish their runs, then left the country and kept writing until Sweden handed him the Nobel Prize in Literature - the first Chinese citizen to take it home.

Writers Writer / Author Literature Painting Fiction Theatre Television Screenwriting

A life in dates

2022Commander of the Legion of HonourAward2005“I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.”In their wordsp. 99Read the whole statement

“I came to the riverbank. The sand underfoot crunches and sounds like my grandmother sighing. She is fond of chattering endlessly, although no-one understands her.”In their wordsp. 100Read the whole statement

“A good man never fights with a woman.”In their wordsp. 103Read the whole statement

“Grandfather, when you saw the tiger were you scared? Bad people scare me, not tigers. Grandfather, have you ever run into bad people?”In their wordsp. 105Read the whole statement

“She says she doesn’t know what to do! But he says coldly that he knows what he wants to do, but he can’t.”In their wordsp. 128, from "In an instant"Read the whole statement

2001Honorary Doctor of the University of Provence - Aix-Marseille IAward2000Nobel Prize in LiteratureAward1989“Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.”In their wordsch. 1, p. 6Read the whole statement

1940Born4 January 1940

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Gao Xingjian (2012, cropped)

Freiburg im Breisgau- Rolf Böhme empfängt den Literatur-Nobelpreisträger Gao Xingjian - LABW - Staatsarchiv Freiburg W 140 Nr. 16028

Freiburg im Breisgau- Rolf Böhme empfängt den Literatur-Nobelpreisträger Gao Xingjian - LABW - Staatsarchiv Freiburg W 140 Nr. 16029

Gao Xingjian - Midis de la Poésie - Bruxelles - 29-09-2015

Gao Xingjian an Tung-Wen Margue-001

Gao Xingjian an Tung-Wen Margue

Gao Xingjian Galerie Simoncini Luxembourg (3x4 cropped)

Gao Xingjian Galerie Simoncini Luxembourg 2012

In their own words 10

Gao Xingjian

10 statements, newest first

I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
2005, p. 99, Own words
I came to the riverbank. The sand underfoot crunches and sounds like my grandmother sighing. She is fond of chattering endlessly, although no-one understands her.
2005, p. 100, Own words
The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything.
2005, p. 101, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

Commander of the Legion of Honour2022

Honorary Doctor of the University of Provence - Aix-Marseille I2001

Nobel Prize in Literature2000

Honorary Doctor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong

About this person

Gao Xingjian was born January 4, 1940, and spent his early career breaking ground in Chinese experimental theatre with works like Absolute Signal in 1982. But The Bus Stop in 1983 and The Other Shore in 1986 were shut down by the state, and after Wild Man in 1985 - his last publicly performed work in China - he left in 1987. His later plays moved away from Chinese themes toward universal ones, though Exile in 1989 managed to anger both Beijing and the overseas democracy movement at once. By 1997 he'd taken French citizenship, and in 2000 the Nobel committee awarded him the prize for literature, citing Soul Mountain and an oeuvre of bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity. He's also a translator of Beckett and Ionesco, a painter, a photographer, and someone who insists he belongs to no party, school, or nation.

Country

China

Writers from China 6

Mo Yan70.4

Manfred Wong68.3

Zhu Xi71.7 Chen Pokong66.8

Lu Xun73.8 Li Ting64.2

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