Date: 4 January 2010Time: 2:00 PM
Finishes: 5 January 2010Time: 8:00 PM
Venue: Brunei GalleryRoom: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
Type of Event: Symposium

4 January 2010 is the 70th birthday of Gao Xingjian, the 2000 Nobel Laureate in Literature. To celebrate his birthday, a symposium will be held at SOAS, University of London, featuring a lecture by the author and the screening of three of his films. Mr Gao Xingjian is both a writer and a painter. The symposium will focus on his works and thoughts, and his contribution to fiction, poetry, drama and theatrical art, Chinese ink-painting and film, as well as his theory of art and literature.

Speakers include:

Gao Xingjian, Sinologist Noël Dutrait, Poet Yang Lian, Sinologist Mary Mazzilli, Writer Chen Maiping, Novelist Ma Jian & many more.

4 January 2009
Chair: Michel Hockx (Professor of Chinese, SOAS)
14:00-14:30 Welcome by Paul Webley, SOAS Director & Principal
14:30-15:00 Screening of After the Deluge, a short film by Gao Xingjian
15:00-16:50 Symposium begins
16:50-17:10 Coffee and Tea
17:10-19:00 Screening of Silhouette/Shadow, a long film by Gao Xingjian
19:00-20:00 Book-signing by Gao Xingjian

5 January 2009
Chair: Tianqi Liao (Director of Independent Chinese PEN Centre)
15:30-16:30 Gao Xingjian introduces his new work Ballade Nocturne
Translator: Claire Conceison
Reader: Stephen Watts, etc
16:30-18:30 Screening of Snow in August, opera written and directed by Gao
18:30 Book-signing by Gao Xingjian

The symposium will be held in Chinese and English.

The event is free and open to the public. Admission is on a first come, first served basis.

Further information about Gao Xingjian: The Nobel Prize in Literature 2000

Contact the Centres & Programmes team on events@soas.ac.uk or Tel: 020 7898 4892/3

Organiser: Centres & Programmes Office
Sponsor: SOAS, Chinese Business Gazette