Literature · Film · Art · Living
Born: 4 January 1940 · Age: 86
Gao Xingjian is 86 years old as of October 2026. He was born on 4 January 1940.
Nobel Prize-winning author of the novel Soul Mountain
Did you know?He is also a prolific painter who has exhibited his distinctive ink wash artworks in galleries all over the world.
Gao Xingjian was the first Chinese-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the 1980s his experimental plays tested the limits of what Chinese theatre could show. The authorities soon banned them. After moving to France he wrote Soul Mountain, a dreamlike journey through China's forests and villages. His works remain banned in China. He is also an ink painter, and his misty landscapes echo his writing. He continues to write, paint and direct from Paris.
Gao Xingjian (Chinese: 高行健; born January 4, 1940) is a Chinese émigré and later French naturalized novelist, playwright, critic, painter, photographer, film director, and translator who was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity." He is…
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Profile
Chinese-born French writer, born 1940
Gao Xingjian was born in Ganzhou on 4 January 1940.
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000.
His novel Soul Mountain follows a journey through rural China.
He has lived in France since 1987.
Career highlights
Did you know?He is also an accomplished ink painter.
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Last reviewed: October 2026