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The novel Lingshan, translated into English as Soul Mountain by Mabel Lee, represents the most important turning point in Gao Xingjian's writing career. There are two reasons to support this claim. First, after the success of his translation project of modernism, Gao departs from high Modernism and makes an attempt at translating the postmodernist writing paradigm in this novel. Second, it is with this novel that Gao receives recognition from the “West” and a pathway is open for his works to enter the canon of “world literature.” According to Gao, it was in 1982 that the idea of the novel was conceived and he started working on it. Therefore a contextual analysis on this novel needs to consider not only the circumstances of its publication, but also those of its conception and development.

Gao Xingjian's works published after he left China in 1987 show a comparable impulse on cultural self-translation. Some of his plays including Nether City and Stories in the Books of Mountains and Seas take material from Chinese mythology and folklore. In this way, the “Chineseness” embodied in this material is carried over into these plays, and therefore into their exilic existence. A more conspicuous attempt to translate the self's past in China into his present exilic existence is found in Yigeren di shengjing, translated into English as One Man's Bible by Mabel Lee, in which the narrator's past and present are interwoven together throughout the novel. One Man's Bible is a companion novel to Soul Mountain. The links between the two are at the same time thematic and structural. Both texts talk about the same scepticism towards language, literature, and representation.

People are increasingly dependent on English translations to get to know “other” literatures with the dominance of the English language. In fact, Gao Xingjian's success is very revealing of the power of translation. Like other works in “minor” languages, Gao's works are essentially received abroad through translation. Translation is surely a powerful instrument. The value of translation is beyond doubt since its very aim is to facilitate understanding between people of divergent cultures, who would not otherwise be able to communicate. However, anybody who has any experience of translation realises that a translation does not equal the source text. In literary translation, the convention of literary writing, including generic forms, rhetorical devices and expectations of the literary readership in the target culture, often determine the form a translation needs to take. Gao's remark on the French translation of Soul Mountain is very revealing of the difficulties one often encounters in translation.