Focusing on the work of the first Chinese-born Nobel Laureate in Literature Gao Xingjian, the scope of this study is to provide an existentialist reading of one of his most controversial plays: "Escape." Written in the aftermath of the Tiananmen square massacres in 1989, this play explores the ways in which an individual, when placed in a situation of physical confinement and extreme emotional distress, is forced to confront the inescapable realities of the human condition, i.e. captivity, exile, the Ego and ultimately death. In an attempt to challenge the general claim whereby such play...