Overview

"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 ""incitement to subvert state power."" In Oslo, actress Liv Ullmann read a long statement the activist had prepared for his 2009 trial. It read in part: ""I 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."" That 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 Vaclav 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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Reviews

During the Nobel ceremony in December 2010, an empty chair was placed in Oslo City Hall to honor Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, whose outspokenness not only earned him the prize but a prison term as well. The award catapulted him to international stardom, shining a penetrating light on his own imprisonment much as he had often shined light on the troubles of his country. These essays provide an up-to-date account of the country's current political and cultural climate, touching on a wide array of issues from the plight of the Chinese farmer to the eroding spirituality of Chinese youth. The essays are tempered by poems, many of which are interwoven throughout the book to provide a much-needed calming effect. Yet Liu Xiaobo's widespread appeal comes not from his poetry, but in his ability to move beyond platitudes and deal in personal stories--e.g., the tale of a local police department's gross mishandling of the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl and the protests that developed soon after. Equally powerful is the author's assault on China's closed society, noting that while prostitution is technically illegal in China, thanks to sexual suppression, China is now number one in the world. ...For the world that knew Liu Xiaobo only for his empty chair in Oslo, this much-needed book fills the void. Kirkus Reviews 20111001 Liu, the 2010 Nobel Peace laureate currently imprisoned in China for incitement to subvert state power, registers wide-ranging dissent against the Chinese system in these withering essays and stark poems ( From the grins of corpses/ you've learned/ that it is only death/ that never fails ). Included are manifestos and trial statements denouncing China's dictatorship and calling for human rights, free speech, and democracy. Other pieces criticize the subtler corruptions of a repressive society: the frenzied nationalism of the Beijing Olympics; mass evictions and child slavery; soulless urban youth; the craze for Confucius, whom the author views as a mediocrity whose legacy is a Chinese slave mentality ; the guilty compromises that prodemocracy leaders--himself included--make to protect themselves. Liu's alienation comes through in his strong, if conflicted, identification with Western ideals, Madisonian politics, and crypto-Catholic religiosity ( we will have passion, miracles and beauty as long as we have the example of Jesus Christ ); it sometimes prompts overly simplistic sociopolitical linkages, as when he blames China's contemporary culture of pornography on Mao's long-past tyranny. Though personal and idiosyncratic at times, Liu's ringing universalist defense of democratic rights and freedoms will resonate with American readers. Publishers Weekly 20111003 It is scarcely credible that the government of a country of 1.4 billion people, one of the largest economies, an emergent great power that is flexing its muscle in all directions, can be so scared of one individual, a writer whose crime is to write about what is happening in China and to disseminate his ideas online. What has [Liu] done that is so bad? Only by reading his work can we find out. Liu's colleagues outside China, Perry Link and Tienchi Martin-Liao, and Liu Xia, are to be thanked for a timely compilation in English that introduces the man and his thoughts from his early years as a literary critic at a Beijing university to his status as the new century's most famous Chinese intellectual, even while he is silenced and incarcerated in his country. It's gutsy for Harvard University Press to publish it, too. Harvard has interests in China, as do many institutions these days. Just to mention Liu Xiaobo's name is taboo for Chinese academics, and even academics outside China can be wary of discussing his work in case they offend officialdom. No Enemies, No Hatred lets us judge for ourselves. It covers a range of recent hot topics in China: the role of sex and political humor in contemporary culture, the Confucius revival, the Beijing Olympics, Hong Kong, Tibet, Obama, Jesus Christ. There's commentary on abuses that attracted grassroots protest: farmers evicted from their land, children forced into slave labor, violent crimes unpunished and covered up. -- Nicholas Jose The Australian 20111005

Author Information

Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, is a Chinese writer and human rights activist. 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. 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. 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.

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