Liu Zaifu: A Comparison Between Nobel Prize-Winning Chinese Writers Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan

Liu Zaifu (1941–), born in Nan'an, Fujian Province, is a Chinese writer and literary critic. He graduated from Xiamen University in 1963 and worked as an editor for the journal New Construction (《新建设》) under the Philosophy and Social Sciences Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1977, he joined the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where he specialized in Lu Xun studies. Starting in 1985, he served as the director of the Institute of Literature and editor-in-chief of Literary Review (《文学评论》) magazine. In 1984, he was appointed as a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Liu Zaifu is the author of several theoretical works, including On Character Composition (《性格组合论》), Reflections on Literature (《文学的反思》), On Chinese Literature (《论中国文学》), Tradition and the Chinese (《传统与中国人》), The Spirit of Exile (《放逐精神》), and Reflections on the Dream of the Red Chamber (《红楼梦悟》), as well as essay collections such as Reading the Sea (《读沧海》) and Drifting Notes (《漂流手记》).

The choice of this topic stems primarily from two factors. First, both Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan are my friends, allowing me to infuse this discussion with a more personal and emotional tone. Second, despite the controversies and criticisms surrounding their Nobel Prize victories, it is undeniable that both will be enshrined in history and will receive continued recognition and analysis in the future. As the first generation of readers and true connoisseurs of their work, it is our responsibility to seize this opportunity. Third, my research began with modern Chinese literature, which was significantly shaped by the May Fourth New Culture Movement—a period characterized by linguistic experimentation, where vernacular writing replaced classical Chinese. Unfortunately, literature later took a convoluted path, with political ideology supplanting literary ideals, thereby corrupting literature and turning it into a mere extension of political discourse. However, the 1980s witnessed a new phenomenon: the emergence of a group of exceptionally talented writers who broke free from the shackles of political concepts, unleashing their creativity and vitality. I often say that our generation was lost within the confines of abstract concepts, but this group of writers wrote from the depths of their hearts, breaking through these barriers and achieving remarkable success. The Nobel Prizes awarded to Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan are international recognition of contemporary Chinese literature, not as a lifeline, but as an embellishment to an already rich tapestry.

Moreover, the Nobel Prizes awarded to Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan have elevated the status of Chinese-language writing on the global stage, carrying significant linguistic implications. Although Gao Xingjian became a French citizen three years before winning the Nobel Prize, the most important criterion for identifying a writer is their cultural and linguistic heritage, and the language in which they write. Gao Xingjian has always written in Chinese; his two major novels, Soul Mountain (《灵山》) and One Man’s Bible (《一个人的圣经》), were both written in Chinese, as were all his short stories and fifteen of his eighteen plays—the remaining three were originally written in French but later rewritten in Chinese. Both Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan are Chinese-language writers, and their Nobel Prizes represent a victory for our mother tongue. The impact of their awards has been to disseminate works written in Chinese characters to every corner of the world. Gao Xingjian’s works have now been translated into over forty languages. When I visited him in France in 2005, I saw that the walls of his home were lined with translations of his works; I roughly counted 315 foreign-language editions. Mo Yan’s works had already been translated into more than twenty languages before his award, and I believe the number of translations will likely double after the award. Chinese-language writing has now reached the pinnacle of global recognition, and we must confront this reality—dare to face Gao Xingjian and dare to face Mo Yan.

Now, I would like to address a second issue: the commonalities between Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan, which are also the aspects that have most moved me about them.

Both Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan possess extraordinary talent and an exceptional work ethic. Regarding the latter, some friends might think I influenced them, but in fact, they have influenced me. The two men come from very different backgrounds: Gao Xingjian was born into a family of bankers—his grandfather, father, uncle, and cousin were all bank employees. Unlike Mo Yan, Gao did not endure hardship during his childhood. His father was also a journalist, and their home was filled with books, including many thread-bound editions. His mother, an actress with the Young Men’s Christian Association Drama Troupe during the Anti-Japanese War, was intellectually vibrant and loved literature, particularly Western literature. Gao Xingjian scarcely attended elementary school, relying instead on his mother’s instruction. Later, when his father’s bank moved from Jiangxi to Nanjing, Gao transferred schools. When tested by a teacher at Nanjing University High School, Gao’s Chinese proficiency allowed him to skip directly to middle school, but his mathematics level placed him in the second half of the fifth grade. Gao began reading adult books at six and started keeping a diary at eight. Once enrolled in Nanjing University High School, he nearly exhausted the library’s collection of literary works. After going abroad, he repeatedly told me that we must work twice as hard as we did in China. Before winning the Nobel Prize, he suffered a severe illness, bleeding profusely and nearly dying before being taken to the hospital. Even after receiving the award, he remained incredibly diligent. In 2001, when the Chinese University of Hong Kong awarded him an honorary doctorate, I accompanied him to the hospital, where his blood pressure was 180, yet he continued directing Weekend Quartet (《周末四重奏》) and Snow in August (《八月雪》) day and night, which eventually caused his blood pressure to rise to over 200, and he collapsed on stage. Mo Yan is equally industrious. Although born into a peasant family, enduring poverty, hunger, and misfortune throughout his childhood, Mo Yan read voraciously in the countryside. He experienced both physical and spiritual hunger, and with an innate thirst for knowledge, he scoured the village for books, borrowing from house to house until he had read every book in the village. Although his formal education was disrupted by the Cultural Revolution, his capacity for self-study was extraordinary. After joining the army, he could even explain Das Kapital to his comrades. Mo Yan’s calligraphy is remarkably beautiful; he writes with his left hand and uses traditional Chinese characters. At just over fifty years old, he has already written eleven novels, thirty novellas, and eighty short stories. What kind of effort and dedication does this represent?

If their extraordinary diligence is the first point, then their remarkable originality is the second. Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain (《灵山》) replaces characters with pronouns and uses psychological rhythm instead of plot. This is an unprecedented innovation in world literary history. Freud discovered three static inner subjects: the id, the ego, and the superego. Gao Xingjian, however, identified the three personal pronouns present in every language: you, I, and he, forming the three axes of inner subjectivity. Soul Mountain intricately weaves these three inner subjects into a complex linguistic relationship. In drama, Gao Xingjian also innovated by creating "pronoun plays," projecting the "I" onto the inner self and staging the invisible states of the mind, turning mental images into physical representations, as seen in Between Life and Death (《生死界》) and Dialogue and Rebuttal (《对话与反诘》)—these are examples of his "psychological state theater." Modern drama, as of Eugene O’Neill’s time, had already explored four dimensions: "Man and God," "Man and Nature," "Man and Society," and "Man and the Other." Gao Xingjian, however, pioneered a fifth dimension: "Man and the Self," as depicted in his play The Escape (《逃亡》). This drama is not political but philosophical, exploring how the self-created hell is the most challenging to break free from, a hell that follows one to the ends of the earth. Sartre said, "Hell is other people," but Gao Xingjian asserted, "Hell is oneself." I still keep the manuscript of Gao Xingjian’s The Escape (《逃亡》). In painting, Gao neither mimics reality nor pursues abstraction deliberately. Instead, he creates suggestive art between the abstract and the figurative, replacing the Western "geometric perspective" (false depth) with a unique "inner depth."

Mo Yan’s originality has repeatedly astonished me, with almost every major work delivering a shockwave. The first shockwave was Transparent Carrot (《透明的红萝卜》). Traditional Chinese literature often adheres to realism, a convention upheld by many military writers. However, this novel is not realist but "sensationalist." The protagonist, Black Boy, feels little physically but is highly attuned inwardly; he hears birds singing in the sky, fish talking in the river, and sees iron rods on the anvil as "transparent carrots." The imagery is fresh, and the sensations are novel. The second shockwave was Red Sorghum (《红高粱》). This work represents a subversive approach to writing, overturning the historical narrative dominated by power. The anti-Japanese hero, perceived as a "bandit," is depicted as "the most beautiful yet the ugliest, the most heroic yet the most despicable." In The Garlic Ballads (《天堂蒜薹之歌》), a place called "Paradise County" is actually a hell—a place of utter misery, helplessness, and poverty for those at the bottom of Chinese society. The Republic of Wine (《酒国》) was yet another explosion of originality, a novel that kept me awake all night after reading it. From an originality standpoint, Mo Yan was the first to introduce monsters and demons into contemporary Chinese literature, the first to open Pandora’s box. His hometown is just over 300 li from Pu Songling’s, so Mo Yan’s work is deeply influenced by both Gabriel García Márquez’s "magic realism" and Pu Songling’s "fox fantasy." Another shockwave came with Big Breasts and Wide Hips (《丰乳肥臀》), a novel whose originality lies first in its ideas, then in its technique. Mo Yan realized that the Chinese people, as a "species," were degenerating. After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese people were spiritually and physically crushed by dogma and ideological frameworks, so our vitality needed to be rekindled. I once praised Mo Yan as the "herald of life" in an article, referring to this exact point. He claimed that he had to cry out in anguish, telling the Chinese people that the species was degenerating, that Chinese men were no longer manly. This was the "wild call on Chinese soil." The novel begins with the theme of "species degeneration," with a mother giving birth to seven girls in a row, desperately hoping for a boy. Later, she has an affair with a Swedish missionary, and they have a son named "Shangguan Jintong." What does this suggest? It implies that the Chinese species needs hybridization to reignite life. Mo Yan’s humor is truly "vicious humor," grand humor with immense intellectual force, very different from Qian Zhongshu’s genteel British humor. The final shockwaves came from Sandalwood Death (《檀香刑》), Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (《生死疲劳》), and Frog (《蛙》). Sandalwood Death (《檀香刑》) exhaustively details various forms of torture, with every cruel act shrouded in the pretense of morality, thoroughly exposing the darkest aspects of Chinese culture. In Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (《生死疲劳》), the landlord Ximen Nao is reincarnated as a donkey, an ox, a pig, and other animals, experiencing the cycle of life and death—its originality and imagination are nothing short of astounding.

Having discussed their similarities, let’s now explore their differences.

I will approach this from three angles: subjectivity, creative approach, and their works. But before delving into these aspects, let me offer a general observation: Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan represent "cold literature" and "hot literature," respectively. Gao Xingjian openly declares his literature to be cold. Cold literature is not indifferent; rather, it is detached and calm. Unlike Lu Xun and Mo Yan, who passionately engage with social issues, Gao withdraws from them, observing them with a cool, dispassionate eye. Mo Yan, by contrast, passionately embraces social realities. Many countries have similar distinctions, such as Japan, where Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburō Ōe are representative of cold and hot literature, respectively. In Europe, Kafka embodies cold literature, while García Márquez represents hot literature. I categorize modern literature into three spiritual categories: the first is "Save the Children," represented by Lu Xun; the second is "Children Save Me," represented by Bing Xin and Feng Zikai; Gao Xingjian represents the third category: "Save Yourself."

Starting with the subjective state of the writers, if we use the language of Chinese culture, Gao Xingjian is a modern Zhuangzi, a Daoist; Mo Yan is a modern Mozi, a Mohist. Gao Xingjian’s entire approach to life is rooted in "Zhuang" and "Chan." For simplicity, let’s use "Dao" to explain it. Soul Mountain (《灵山》) rejects mainstream Central Plains culture, focusing instead on four marginal cultures: the natural culture of Daoism, the intuitive culture of Chan Buddhism, the folk culture of ethnic minorities, and the hermit culture of intellectuals. The essence of Zhuangzi lies in the spirit of transcendence, the pursuit of ultimate freedom—this is the guiding principle of Gao Xingjian’s life. Snow in August (《八月雪》) tells the story of Huineng; some consider it a religious play, but it is actually a psychological play. Huineng, the protagonist, embodies Gao Xingjian’s personality. Although a religious leader, Huineng eschews idol worship, refuses to become a court advisor, and ultimately discards even his own religious vestments—all in pursuit of ultimate freedom.

Mo Yan, on the other hand, embodies the stance of Mozi, who represents the common people and is closely aligned with the grassroots. Lu Xun greatly admired Mozi, writing A Madman’s Diary (《狂人日记》) with Mozi in mind, yet he felt little affection for Zhuangzi. Mozi advocated "universal love" and "non-aggression." Unlike Confucian "benevolence," which prescribes a hierarchical love rooted in societal roles, Mohist love is unconditional and universal. As a modern Mozi, Mo Yan often shouts on behalf of the downtrodden. Lu Xun once wrote an essay titled The Evolution of Ruffians ("流氓的变迁"), noting that "ruffians" trace their origins back to Mohism. Mohism once fostered a noble "chivalric spirit," but as this spirit degenerated, it transformed into "banditry" and ultimately into "ruffianism." In my work A Dual Critique ("双典批判"), I distinguish between "knights" and "thieves": both draw their swords when they see injustice, but while "thieves" keep their spoils, "knights" do not. Song Jiang in Water Margin (《水浒传》) embodies this chivalric spirit—he rebels against corrupt officials, but not against the emperor, because he has no desire to seize the throne. This transcendent chivalric spirit can be seen in Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum (《红高粱》), where the bandits are half-bandit, half-knight. Mo Yan describes them as "the most heroic and the most despicable"; I describe them as "the most chivalric and the most bandit-like."

If we use Western cultural language to describe them, Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan represent the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits, respectively. The concepts of Apollonian and Dionysian come from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (《悲剧的诞生》), but I define "Apollonian" with three keywords: "detached," "serene," and "contemplative"; "Dionysian" with "passionate," "celebratory," and "vociferous." Mo Yan’s works are filled with celebrations—celebrations of life, death, wine, and love. His depictions of love are often not "serious" love but wild, passionate encounters. In The Republic of Wine (《酒国》), the city is populated by wine gods, drunkards, wine demons, and wine moths, all engaging in Dionysian revelry. In the film adaptation of Red Sorghum (《红高粱》), a child deliberately urinates into the wine—a quintessential expression of the Dionysian spirit, an Eastern variant of it. Mo Yan often writes about urination in his works; in The Garlic Ballads (《天堂蒜薹之歌》), he describes two boys competing to see who can urinate the farthest, and in prison, he has the inmates drink urine. What is literature? Mo Yan puts it well: "Literature is pissing into God’s golden cup!" Mo Yan is the bravest, most passionate, most unrestrained, and most talented warrior in contemporary literature, smashing dogma with unparalleled force.

Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan’s subjective states also differ in the following way: Gao Xingjian embodies the refined aesthetic tastes of the European intellectual elite, while Mo Yan reflects the popular tastes of Chinese folk culture, resonating with both the refined and the common. Gao Xingjian’s dramatic works have few appreciators in China. For instance, his play Weekend Quartet (《周末四重奏》) is highly popular in France, performed repeatedly. This work consists of four acts in which two pairs of men and women gather over the weekend to chat—a conversation that appears trivial but actually reveals the existential anxiety of fleeting moments in life, what Heidegger refers to as the "angst" of existence. Mo Yan’s works, by contrast, are devoid of this "foreign flavor"; they exude the rich, earthy aroma of Chinese soil, a quality recognized by the Nobel Prize—a rare phenomenon in itself.

Second, from the perspective of creative approach, three more distinctions emerge. First, Gao Xingjian is an all-encompassing creator, while Mo Yan is a singular or prominent type of writer. Three years ago, during a lecture in South Korea, I mentioned that in my mind, there are at least four Gao Xingjians: first, Gao Xingjian the novelist; second, Gao Xingjian the dramatist; third, Gao Xingjian the painter—his ink paintings have been highly successful, with over seventy solo exhibitions in more than a dozen countries. Former Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa’s sister, Tung Chee-chen, even opened a gallery dedicated to Gao Xingjian’s ink paintings. His art does not depict color but rather emptiness, surpassing Impressionism. The "light" in his paintings is not natural light but inner light; fourth, Gao Xingjian the thinker—this is what moves me the most. He has written several theoretical works, including Without -isms (《没有主义》), On Creation (《创作论》), and Another Aesthetic (《另一种美学》). His theories constitute the most mature and lucid literary perspectives in contemporary literature, although unfortunately, they are not available in mainland China. Last year, Linking Publishing released a collection of his poems, for which I wrote the preface. I discovered that he is also an excellent poet, responding to the times through his poetry. In addition, he is a skilled director and is currently completing his third film. Gao Xingjian refers to his films as "film-poetry," where watching them feels akin to reading poetry. His latest film, The Funeral of Beauty (《美的葬礼》), completely abandons narrative, using his long poem of the same name as a monologue to lament the decline of art in Europe—a eulogy for "beauty." In contrast, Mo Yan is a genius novelist, excelling in creating a massive body of novelistic work. In a dialogue with Wang Yao, the Dean of Suzhou University’s College of Literature, Mo Yan mentioned that he once tried writing screenplays but quickly returned to novel writing, thereby establishing a vast novelistic system.

Second, Gao Xingjian represents universal writing, while Mo Yan represents local writing. Many of Gao Xingjian’s novels and plays lack a discernible Chinese historical or temporal context. Even when writing on Chinese themes, such as in Snow in August (《八月雪》) and Tales of Classic Chinese Mountains and Seas (《山海经传》), he expresses artistic content from a universal human perspective. Mo Yan, by contrast, "digs one deep well"—the Northeast Gaomi Township of his hometown. If Gao Xingjian moves from the universal to the particular, Mo Yan moves from the particular to the universal, following a Faulknerian path from the local to the national and then to the global.

Third, Gao Xingjian is a writer of ideas, while Mo Yan is a writer of sensations. Gao Xingjian's significant contribution is to infuse literature with deep reflections on the era. Whether reading his novels, dramas, or appreciating his paintings, one can feel his profound understanding of the times. Soul Mountain (《灵山》) represents a profound reflection on the times, questioning whether a spiritual mountain still exists in our era, and if so, where it is located. Professor Li Zehou once wrote an article titled Four Stars Shine Bright, But Where is the Spiritual Mountain? ("四星高照，何处灵山"), referencing the four stars of celebrity: sports stars, movie stars, singing stars, and show hosts—these stars illuminate everything, but where is the spiritual mountain? Gao Xingjian wrote Soul Mountain (《灵山》) before the four stars shone bright, during the time when the Red Star was dominant, so he was questioning, "Where is the spiritual mountain in the light of the Red Star?" This is a profound reflection on the era. One Man's Bible (《一个人的圣经》) reflects on another question: Where does freedom lie? Who grants freedom? Is it given by God, the government, others, or oneself? His answer is that it is given by oneself. Only when one awakens to freedom does one truly have it. This realization has greatly inspired me. Mo Yan, by contrast, is entirely a writer of sensations, his whole being a "sensory organ," especially his nose, which is extraordinarily sensitive. He has a story titled The Tribe of Scent (《嗅味族》), where a group of people have an extra hole at the tip of their noses, allowing them to detect the aroma of meat from ten miles away. This likely stems from Mo Yan's own experience of hunger.

Lastly, let’s discuss their works. Mo Yan excels at pushing stories to their extremes; he is brimming with stories, and humor flows through them. Gao Xingjian, on the other hand, deconstructs stories in his works, even deconstructing characters. Mo Yan is a master storyteller, taking the traditional Chinese "hua ben" (话本) style to its peak. Three aspects are particularly noteworthy: First, he tells stories with grand scope, grand vision, and grand artistry—what I call "grand narrative." Mo Yan has written eleven novels to date, and he says that writing each one is an immense labor, not easy at all. Some critics have reproached him for finishing Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (《生死疲劳》) in just forty-nine days, arguing that the pace was too fast. But Mo Yan responded that the novel had been conceived over twenty years. He once likened writing a short story to being a platoon leader, a novella to being a battalion commander, and a novel to being a general—difficult to control. Second, his novels not only move people but also shock and even startle them. Gao Xingjian, by contrast, completely deconstructs the story; Soul Mountain (《灵山》) replaces characters with pronouns. Many of his short stories are not stories but streams of consciousness, flows of language, writing about situations. Gao Xingjian also deconstructs characters; Soul Mountain (《灵山》) still has "you," "I," and "he," but by the time of One Man's Bible (《一个人的圣经》), even the "I" is gone. I once asked Gao Xingjian why even "I" disappeared, and he replied that in that era, there was no individuality, no "I." His plays Between Life and Death (《生死界》) and Dialogue and Rebuttal (《对话与反诘》) showcase a unique creation—"non-character character existence." This humanoid figure is not a real person but continues to speak in human language. This can be seen as the existence of life, a philosophical existence, or a psychological existence.

The second distinction lies in language. Gao Xingjian’s language is like the Yangtze River—steady, rhythmic, and highly musical. If you read Soul Mountain (《灵山》) as a prose piece, it is very readable. He often kept a music player beside him, listening to music while writing. He once made a rather absolute statement, saying, "I am only responsible for the language." He transformed streams of consciousness into streams of language, with a disciplined language style reminiscent of the French writer Flaubert. Mo Yan’s language, on the other hand, is more like the Yellow River or a waterfall—rushing and forceful, carrying everything along in its flow. His texts are full of human speech, mythical tales, ghost stories, fox spirits, fairy tales, and coarse language, drawing on the primal energy of the earth, with a grandeur and emotional depth akin to Balzac.

Regardless of whether it is Gao Xingjian or Mo Yan, they have both become part of the world's consciousness. Certain names and works in the world represent the spiritual level and height of the earth, and these are part of the world's consciousness. Despite their differences in style, literary techniques, and writing methods, Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan have both reached the pinnacle of the world's consciousness.