Translating the Self: Gao Xingjian’s Ballade Nocturne and Yejian Xingge 夜間行歌

As a multifaceted artist, a “citizen of the world”, a deterritorialized author with bilingual and a bicultural consciousness, Gao Xingjian 高行健 constantly reveals his ability to give his hybrid self the shape of literary and artistic works which transcend boundaries. His desire to go beyond individual linguistic borders and to address the entire world became tangible through self-translation. This article focuses his most recent play written in French and self-translated into Chinese – Ballade Nocturne / Yejian xingge 夜間行歌 – and offers a preliminary comparative analysis of the two versions. With a translational approach, it aims at highlighting potential evidences of the author’s collaboration strategies with the Sinophone and the French audience, when reterritorializing his work. Following the preliminary hypothesis that Gao Xingjian’s selftranslation stands as a dialogue with his essentially twofold public, the analysis suggests that Ballade nocturne becomes a place for further artistic investigation and practice, as well as a chance to articulate the plurality of his own creative process, and his hybrid self.