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 Soul Mountain.

Bold, lyrical, and prodigious, Soul Moutain 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.

[中文翻譯：

1983年，中國劇作家、評論家、小說家、畫家高行健被診斷出肺癌，瀕臨死亡。但六週後，第二次檢查顯示他沒有罹患癌症——他獲得了“第二次死亡緩刑”。面對壓抑的文化環境和監獄農場咒語的威脅，高行健逃離北京，開始了 15,000 公里的旅程，進入中國西南四川的偏遠山區和古老森林。這次史詩般的發現之旅的結果就是靈山。

大膽、抒情和驚人的靈山以一種不尋常的直接和坦率探索人類的靈魂，並以想像的自由為樂，擴展個體自我的概念。]