Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht on Theatre, translated by John Willett, Hill & Wang Publishers, 1964.

Bertolt Bertolt was the most influential German dramatist and theoretician of the theater in the twentieth century and had a profound influence on Xingjian's development as a dramatist. This book includes selections of Brecht's critical writing, including his seminal essay, "A Short Organum for the Theatre."

Chen, Xiaomei, Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China, University of Hawai'i Press, 2002.

A cultural history of huaju, or modern Chinese drama, from 1966 to 1996, this book covers the period of the Cultural Revolution when theater was chosen as the state's primary vehicle to promote proletarian art.

Chen, Xiaomei, ed., Reading the Right Text: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama, University of Hawai'i Press, 2003.

Six new plays from contemporary China, translated into English for the first time, are included in this collection. Unlike...