Just who is Gao Xingjian, the Chinese writer who won the 2000 Nobel for literature? “Mr. Gao has 18 plays, 4 works of literary criticism and 5 books of fiction to his name, but his entire oeuvre has been banned on the Chinese mainland since 1985, while his best-known novel, ‘Soul Mountain,’ a lyrical account of a long journey through the Chinese backlands, has so far been published only in Taiwan, Sweden, France and Australia.” – New York Times