Gao Xingjian’s Escape from Orientalism

Of Mountains and Seas (1989) and Snow in August (1997) are two plays which Gao Xingjian completed in France and contain direct references to ancient Chinese cultures. With reference to Gao’s “cold” theatrical techniques of suppositionality and tripartite acting, I argue such plays not only expose the Orientalist impulses in their portrayals of Chinese mythology and Zen Buddhism but also breathe new life into these ancient Chinese traditions. By highlighting Gao’s emphasis on observation, this paper demonstrates how his “escape” from Orientalism via literature is less about the avoidance of Orientalism than the reflexive observation of Orientalism.

Literary celebrities as counterpublics: A comparative study of Gao Xingjian and Toni Morrison

Despite its universal importance, the Nobel Prize in literature, which is based in Sweden and administered by the Swedish Academy, is a central European literary prize. And the prestige which the Nobel Prize bestows upon its winners is fuelled by a central-European type of fetishization of intellectual achievement, in which Nobel laureates are more known than they are read. Rather than being publicly recognized for their literary achievements, Nobel Prize-winning authors become literary celebrities who represent various kinds of Nobel-related capitals, including political capital, cultural capital and economic capital. In this article, I investigate on two non-European, Nobel Prize-winning authors, Gao Xingjian (the first Chinese-language Nobel author, 2000) and Toni Morrison (the first African American female Nobel author, 1993), and how they represent different conceptions of literary celebrities, and by extension different types of counterpublics. In order to study the relationship between Nobel literary laureates, storytelling and the representation of marginalized groups in the public domain, I examine and compare how Gao Xingjian’s and Toni Morrison’s Nobel lectures give voice to the Sinophone community and the African American community respectively. For Gao’s case, I study his Nobel lecture against the backdrop of the Chinese ‘Nobel complex’. In Morrison’s case, I examine her Nobel lecture as being re-presented in her appearances on Oprah’s Book Club, a reading initiative launched by the popular American television talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Translation as Creation: Interview with Gao Xingjian

This article is an interview with Gao Xingjian, the Nobel Prize laureate of 2000.

Gao Xingjian’s Dialogue with Literary and Visual Traditions

The paper is devoted to the contemporary Chinese prose and drama writer, painter,stage director and author of experimental art films, Gao Xingjian. My aim is topresent his innovative solutions in the field of different arts and media. I try toanalyze his works in a broad context of Eastern and Western culture and to showthe flexibility with which he crosses the narrow borders of arts, makes use of therich heritage of his native traditional culture, Chinese Taoist philosophy with itsprocessual understanding of reality. I also point at his interest in the aesthetics ofemptiness and artistic minimalism.