BAGNOLET, France (AP) - Gao Xingjian burned his early writings to save himself from communist zealots, was denounced by his own wife and eventually went into exile. On Thursday, the 60-year-old survivor of China's upheaval and oppression became its first Nobel Prize laureate for literature.
The Swedish Academy cited the novelist and playwright for the ''bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity'' in his writings about the ''struggle for individuality in mass culture.''
Gao, ''very, very surprised'' at the honor, declared writing to have been his salvation, even during Mao Tse-tung's brutal 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals were silenced and he had to burn ''kilos and kilos'' of his writings lest they fall into the wrong hands.
''In China, I could not trust anyone, not even my family. The atmosphere was so poisoned, people were so brainwashed that even someone from your own family could turn you in,'' he told The Associated Press.
That actually happened, according to his friend and fellow Chinese exile, poet Bei Ling. ''His wife told people from the government that he had been writing literary things at home, and writing literature then was very dangerous,'' said Bei.
Gao did not go into specifics in the interview, but it was not uncommon during the Cultural Revolution for people, driven to extremes to save themselves, to divorce loved ones targeted by the zealots.
Gao went on to become a leading cultural figure in China but fled in 1987 after one of his plays was banned and he was put under police surveillance. After the 1989 blood bath at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, he wrote ''Fugitives,'' set against the background of the slayings. The Communist regime declared him ''persona non grata'' and banned his works.
Gao's novel, ''Soul Mountain,'' a complex narrative based on his travels in China, was published in English translation last year and was singled out by the Swedish Academy as ''one of those singular literary creations that seem impossible to compare with anything but themselves.''
Gao has lived in France for 12 years, speaks flawless French and holds French citizenship. He is an authority on modern French drama but leads a humble, spartan life. After the Nobel announcement, he received visitors at his two-room apartment in a blue-collar Paris suburb wearing a sweat shirt and slippers.
Gao said he started keeping a diary when he was 8 and now writes or paints up to 16 hours a day on a glass table, the only furniture in the room.
''Writing eases my suffering,'' he said. ''When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.''
Having survived the Cultural Revolution, he saw his dramas fall victim in the 1980s to a government campaign against what it called ''spiritual pollution.'' ''Bus Stop'' (1983) and ''The Other Shore'' (1986) were banned. After leaving China he wrote ''Between Life and Death'' (1991), and ''Weekend Quartet'' (1995) which critics say gracefully combines poetry, comedy and tragedy to portray life's grim realities.
Gao said the prize, worth $915,000, ''really is something, especially for a Chinese man because the Nobel is a very heated issue in China.''
China has been suspicious of the Nobel institution since it awarded the 1989 Peace Prize to the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet's struggle to throw of Chinese rule.
Gao said he would not try to make political capital out of his award, ''I am not a politician,'' he said. ''I'm not involved in politics, but that does not prevent me from criticizing the policies of Communist China. I say what I want to say. If I have chosen to live in exile, it is to be able to express myself freely without constraints.''
Gao said that he has broken all ties to China ''so that I can express myself freely without endangering my family and those close to me.''
Poet Bei, who lives in Boston, called the prize ''an affirmation of his creativity and a great show of support for all of us independent writers and exiled writers.''
But for many young Chinese, Gao is an unknown. His works are published in Hong Kong and Taiwan, not in China, so ''many writers under the age of 35 do not know him,'' said Bei, 40.
At the highbrow, arty Three Flavors Bookstore in central Beijing, literature-loving shop attendants had never heard of Gao but rejoiced nonetheless.
''As a Chinese, I am very proud that a Chinese person won the prize,'' said Wang Shenda, a college graduate working in the store.