Soul Mountain

灵山 defies conventional categorisation. Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian (高行建) has carved out an entire new genre of writing that is semi-autobiograhical part-travelogue some-fiction. More of a document of a man's internal journey rather than record of his travel to the more remote areas in Western/Central China , he is adept at slipping into the psyche of different roles and does this so quickly that sometimes it's easy to lose track of who the "I", "You", "She" and "He" refer to. His treatment of women is more refined than Ma Jian (马建), who can sometimes be too provocative. But then I like Ma for different reasons.