Gao Xingjian, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature, is a celebrated novelist, dramatist, literary critic, poet, painter, and stage and film director. He is an exceptionally versatile artist of multiple talents.

Gao Xingjian was born in Ganzhou, Jianxi Province , China in 1940. He graduated from the Department of French, Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1962 and worked in Beijing as a translator. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to work in the countryside, and returned to Beijing in the late 1970s. His works were first published in 1980, and since then he has been considered a pioneer in Chinese experimental theatre and contemporary fiction. His works created a great sensation but were strongly criticised and eventually banned. In 1987, Gao was invited to visit Germany and France . His play Escape , published in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, led to a total ban of his works in China . He then settled in France as a political refugee. In 1992, Gao was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des lettres, and in 1997 he became a French citizen. In 2000 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature and Italy 's Premio Letterario Feronia, and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Legion d'Honneur by the president of the Republic of France . The French city of Marseilles designated 2003 as “ l'annee Gao Xingjian ” (Gao Xingjian Year) with year-round activities in honour of the artist. In 2006, Gao was awarded the Lions Award by the New York Public Library. He was conferred honorary doctorates by The Chinese University of Hong Kong , l'Universite de Provence , National Tai wan University , National Central University and National Sun Yet-sen University .

Gao's major works include the novels Soul Mountain and One Man's Bible , short stories, theoretical works on art and literature, as well as 18 plays. His novels and theatrical works examine the existential challenges facing mankind. In the presentation speech for his Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy acclaimed him for his “universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity”. Gao's novels have been translated into 36 different languages and published worldwide, and his plays have been staged frequently in various countries around the globe. He is undoubtedly one of the world's most prominent writers of our time.

Gao's paintings have been exhibited in some 70 important expositions and at museums and galleries throughout Europe , America and Asia . His paintings are unique in style: neither concrete nor abstract, they blend meditation, imagination and poetry with Chinese ink, manifesting a profound inner state of mind.