<p>In 1983, Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer and faced imminent death.But six weeks later, a second examination revealed there was no cancer—he had won "a second reprieve from death." Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing and began a journey of 15,000 kilometers into the remote mountains and ancient forests of Sichuan in southwest China. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is <i>Soul Mountain</i>.</p><p>Bold, lyrical, and prodigious, <i>Soul Moutain</i> probes the human soul with an uncommon directness and candor and delights in the freedom of the imagination to expand the notion of the individual self.</p>