CHINA: GAO XINGJIAN WINS NOBEL PRIZE

(13 Oct 2000) Mandarin/Nat
Gao Xingjian, the self-exiled author whose works are banned in his native China, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday - the first Chinese to win the award in its 100-year history.
In exile in France since 1987, the multi-talented dramatist, novelist, director and critic seems to have been forgotten by his compatriots.
As the Nobel Prize in Literature was granted in Stockholm on Wednesday to the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian, in Beijing, the usual crowd of his compatriots was gathering in China's most famous theatre, the Capital Theatre, better known as the People's Theatre.
A few decades ago, Gao Xingjian's plays were shown in China but they were banned in 1986, allegedly being 'too modern' for the period.
Gao Xingjian burned his early writings to save himself from communist zealots, was denounced by his own wife and eventually went into exile.
In fear of persecution, the writer fled to France in 1987 where he has been living ever since in exile - a political refugee pursuing his writing.
On Thursday, the 60-year-old survivor of China's upheaval and oppression became its first Nobel Prize laureate for literature.
Gao survived the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, the mass political upheaval fomented by Mao Tse-tung to rekindle the communist revolution.
Gao quit the Communist Party and joined the dissident movement after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
His play "Fugitives" was set against the background of the slayings in Beijing.
The Communist regime declared him "persona non grata" and banned all his works.
However, for many young Chinese, Gao is an unknown - his work is published in Hong Kong and Taiwan but not in China.
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
"(her) We have been watching dramas for so many years..."
"(him)... we have never heard of him !"
SUPER CAPTION: Vox pop couple
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
"I don't know.."
SUPERCAPTION: Vox pop
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
"Euh... I am sorry.."
SUPERCAPTION: Vox pop
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
"Who ? Gao Xing Jian I don't know - one of the old writers of the People's Theatre? No, I don't know." SUPERCAPTION: Vox pop
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
"Ooooh ! He is very... He speaks French, doesn't he? He wrote some very radical plays, didn't he ? No, I did not work with him...I know him that's all!"
SUPERCAPTION: Meng Weicai, writer
The government and its approved artistic associations issued no immediate reaction.
Gao's play, "The Other Shore," was banned in 1986 in a crackdown on foreign influence in the arts.
To avoid further harassment, he took a 10-month walking tour in central China and left the country the next year.
Gao's novel, "Soul Mountain," a complex narrative based on these travels in China, was published in English translation last year and was singled out by the Swedish Academy as "one of those singular literary creations that seem impossible to compare with anything but themselves."
Now modern plays are becoming almost common as China is increasingly opening up to foreign cultural influences.
And visitors themselves are no longer so afraid to express their thoughts in public though they maintain a certain reserve.
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
"I am very pleased for him. I congratulate him. It's Mr Li Ao who will be disappointed !" (Note: Li Ao is a Taiwanese playwright)
SUPERCAPTION: Vox pop
Names of exiled writers such as Gao are still remembered in some places, especially in the People's Theatre Bookshop, a reference point for any amateur of dramas writer in Beijing.
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
SUPERCAPTION: Zheng Tianwei, drama actress
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