born Jan. 4, 1940, Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, China
Chinese émigré novelist and playwright.
His novel Soul Mountain (1989) resulted from a pilgrimage in the form of a 10-month walking tour along the Yangtze River . Gao's works were banned in China after the publication of his play Fugitives (1989), which reflected the 1989 events in Tiananmen Square . In 1987 he settled in France and later became a French citizen. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000.