birth_place citizenship influences awards birth_date language image article_title name occupation alma_mater
ganzhou , jiangxi , china china 1998 -rrb- -lrb- 1940 -- 1998 -rrb- france -lrb- since fernando pessoa nobel prize in literature 2000 4 january 1940 chinese gao xingjian galerie simoncini luxembourg.jpg gao xingjian
 gao xingjian novelist , director , painter , playwright , critic , translator , screenwriter beijing foreign studies university
gao xingjian

gao xingjian -lrb- ; ; born january 4 , 1940 -rrb- is a chinese émigré novelist , playwright , and critic who in 2000 was awarded the nobel prize for literature `` for an oeuvre of universal validity , bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity . ''
he is also a noted translator -lrb- particularly of samuel beckett and eugène ionesco -rrb- , screenwriter , stage director , and a celebrated painter .
in 1998 , gao was granted french citizenship .
gao 's drama is considered to be fundamentally absurdist in nature and avant-garde in his native china .
his prose works tend to be less celebrated in china but are highly regarded elsewhere in europe and the west .
