Gao Xingjian, 2000 Nobel Laureate in Literature, approaches his writing with a strong conviction of the purity of literature and its dignity as art. The result is what he calls "Cold Literature", personal, detached, apolitical and antipathetic to noisy slogan-mongering writing; yet this literature also manages to be compelling and engaging with the strongest cogency.<BR>The present anthology contains many gems of Gao's works. It presents an all-round picture of Gao and his many talents - novelist, playwright, poet, painter, and theorist - and takes the reader into a world that is uniquely Gao's, the quest for the self and its salvation, the depth of his understanding of the tragedy of modern man and ultimately, the dignity of being human.<BR>Cold Literature brings together for the first time two English translators of Gao Xingjian's works, Gilbert C. F. Fong and Mabel Lee. Some of the translations in this collection are newly produced, and others have been revised, so that the beauty and musicality of Gao's language are revealed in Chinese as well as in English.