Gao Xingjian: Aesthetics and Creation By Gao Xingjian

particular time. Successive political authorities have fallen, and eras in the long river of history have gradually become dim, yet such writers and their works stand out to illuminate the conscience of humankind.

Human civilisation has a dual history: the history of change revolving around national political authorities, and the history of cultural thought. The former is accompanied by incessant war and regards the conqueror’s military success and rule as glorious achievements. Qin Shihuang’s grave and Napoleon’s victory arch are such relics of civilisation. However, individuals have written the history of cultural thought. Writers and intellectuals at particular times may not have had the freedom to write and could have offended the powerful and noble through carelessness and ended up becoming recluses, going into exile, or even losing their lives. The fate of writers from ancient times to the present has changed very little. The homelands of writers from Qu Yuan in Asia to Dante in Europe and to Joyce and Beckett in modern times did not possess the social conditions that would have allowed or accepted their writings.

The writer has no need to take pains to identify with a race or a nation. Territorial or cultural identification inevitably comes from political need and is like the manufacture of all sorts of identification to bring more people into a common interest group when political parties are formed. Humanity’s territorial and cultural identity comes with the person, and there is no need to stress this, especially in the present age when communication and cultural transmission is so easy and there is not a single thinking person who has not accepted some degree of multicultural influence. Writers do not need to assume the role of spokesperson for a nation or a race, and it would be best that they saw themselves as citizens of the world and spoke in the voice of the individual that is more authentic and real.

The works left by the writer may bear traces of a particular national culture, but what is interesting in the works are their uniqueness and newness. If a writer fails to articulate something that previously has not been articulated or fails to express fresh feelings and thoughts and only