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Biographical note: LiuXiaobo: Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, is a Chinese writer and human rights activist.LinkPerry: Perry Link is retired from a career teaching at Princeton University and now is Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines at the University of California, Riverside. He publishes on Chinese language, literature, and cultural history, and also writes and speaks on human rights in China.Martin-LiaoTienchi: Tienchi Martin-Liao born in Nanjing, China and educated in Taiwan and Germany-has dedicated much of her life to advocating for democracy and human rights in China. Martin-Liao has authored and translated numerous books on Chinese cultural and social subjects, and frequently appears in the US and international media as an expert on Chinese human rights issues. She is currently the Senior Research Analyst and the Editor-in-Chief at the Laogai Research Foundation in Washington, D.C.LiuXia: Liu Xia, the wife of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, is a painter, poet, and photographer from Beijing, China. Since her husband's formal arrest in 2009, Liu Xia has often had to speak out on behalf of her husband in the public arena. When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in December 2010, its recipient, Liu Xiaobo, was serving an eleven-year sentence in a Chinese prison for 0incitement to subvert state power.0 These essays and poems not only chronicle a leading dissident’s struggle against tyranny but enrich the record of universal longing for freedom and dignity. When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on December 10, 2010, its recipient, Liu Xiaobo, was in Jinzhou Prison, serving an eleven-year sentence for what Beijing called 0incitement to subvert state power.0 In Oslo, actress Liv Ullmann read a long statement the activist had prepared for his 2009 trial. It read in part: 0I stand by the convictions I expressed in my ‘June Second Hunger Strike Declaration’ twenty years ago—I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies.0That statement is one of the pieces in this book, which includes writings spanning two decades, providing insight into all aspects of Chinese life. These works not only chronicle a leading dissident’s struggle against tyranny but enrich the record of universal longing for freedom and dignity. Liu speaks pragmatically, yet with deep-seated passion, about peasant land disputes, the Han Chinese in Tibet, child slavery, the CCP’s Olympic strategy, the Internet in China, the contemporary craze for Confucius, and the Tiananmen massacre. Also presented are poems written for his wife, Liu Xia, public documents, and a foreword by Václav Havel.This collection is an aid to reflection for Western readers who might take for granted the values Liu has dedicated his life to achieving for his homeland.
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