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
Writing eases my suffering... writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.
dream real self
Dreams are more real than reality itself, they're closer to the self.
want compromise ifs
If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.
true-life literature fiction
It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.
simple layers facts
There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer.
self order mad
In the century that has just passed, many of the intellectual elite went mad. It was as if, with the death of God, everyone suddenly turned into a saviour who wanted either to annihilate the obsolete world order or to establish a utopia. Naturally, there were writers among those who went mad. The fact that they had knowledge did not exempt intellectuals: there is madness everywhere. When one loses control over one's self, the result is madness.
want sand
The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything.
fighting men good-man
A good man never fights with a woman.
voice want humans
When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
struggle life-is natural
Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
hate love-and-hate together
Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
ideas produce aspiration
Indeed, loft aspirations produce ideas.
personal-experiences
Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
dream instant
They say it only takes an instant to have a dream; a dream can be compressed into hardtack.