Gao Xingjian's Individualistic Revolt: Fiction, Biography, and Event

Based on a careful analysis of Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible by Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian, this paper discusses how Gao’s writings reflect the various dilemmas he has gone through. The questions that will be addressed include, What happened to his pursuit of individualism at a time of increasing enforcement of collectivism? In what ways does his fiction become a testimony to the Cultural Revolution? How is Gao’s exilic narrative of China’s past different from that of other Chinese writers? How is Gao able to both deconstruct and reconstruct Chineseness in his novels?