Overview

On December 10, 2010, on stage in Oslo City Hall, an empty chair sat before more than one thousand people, holding only the medal and diploma of the year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. A larger-than-life photo of a smiling Liu Xiaobo hung in the background. This striking image is now known throughout the world. But who is Liu Xiaobo? For the first time, this biography by renowned Chinese author and close friend Yu Jie offers a first-hand look into the man behind the empty chair. Dissident, prisoner, poet, scholar, Liu was compelled by intolerable circumstances to embark on a campaign of intellectual dissent, becoming in the course of his journey a leading human rights activist and one of the most important political figures in modern history. In the quarter century since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, Liu has been unable to lead a normal life. In this first authorized biography, Yu traces an extraordinary man’s odyssey, from growing up in the northeast and Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution, through his meteoric rise in Beijing’s intellectual circles and his pivotal role in the Tiananmen protests and subsequent imprisonments, to the founding of the controversial Independent Chinese PEN and groundbreaking Charter 08, his poignant relationship with wife Liu Xia, and winning the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. It is also a love story between two poets who, though separated by three hundred miles and eleven years behind bars, are united in their persistence to speak truth to power, inspiring countless others.

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9781442237131

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Reviews

This personal, affectionate, but also critical portrait of the famous dissident and Nobel Laureate provides rich new details on his childhood, personal life, professional relationships, and prison experiences. Above all, it traces the gradual development of Liu's political convictions and the personal philosophy that has made him such a respected leader, eloquent spokesman, and enduring symbol of the Chinese people's yearning for freedom. -- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University This is a match made in heaven: Liu Xiaobo could never find a more diligent biographer than Yu Jie. And Yu Jie could never find a more compelling subject than Liu Xiaobo. Yu's portrayal of Liu's life not only covers his past but also looks toward the future and his struggle to create a new world: a beautiful story that has yet to be written. The Liu Xiaobo that Yu Jie portrays here is not a distant saint, but rather a real human being who comes to life in these pages. -- Yu Ying-shih, Emeritus, Princeton University Although we have not yet met, I count my fellow Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo as a friend, admiring his courage in pushing China toward political, legal, and constitutional reforms. It is important that the free world not forget him and other prisoners of conscience for exercising their freedom of expression. Therefore, I welcome this book in which Yu Jie tells the story of his life so far. May he soon be free. To most people who have heard of Liu Xiaobo, the name means only one or another famous persona: star professor, imprisoned enemy of the state, or Nobel Laureate. In this lively and insightful book, Yu Jie, a long-time personal friend, reveals Liu as a human being in daily life: idealistic and ornery at the same time, addicted to his appetites, inveterately critical of both himself and others, always on the move, incapable of insincerity, and prodigiously intelligent. The best biography available in a Western language, this book should be read by all serious China watchers. -- Perry Link, University of California, Riverside

This personal, affectionate, but also critical portrait of the famous dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate provides rich new details on his childhood, personal life, professional relationships, and prison experiences. Above all, it traces the gradual development of Liu's political convictions, and of the personal philosophy that has made him such a respected leader, eloquent spokesman, and enduring symbol of the Chinese people's yearning for freedom. -- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

This personal, affectionate, but also critical portrait of the famous dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate provides rich new details on his childhood, personal life, professional relationships, and prison experiences. Above all, it traces the gradual development of Liu's political convictions, and of the personal philosophy that has made him such a respected leader, eloquent spokesman, and enduring symbol of the Chinese people's yearning for freedom. -- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University This is a match made in heaven: Liu Xiaobo could never find a more diligent biographer than Yu Jie. And Yu Jie could never find a more compelling subject than Liu Xiaobo. Yu's portrayal of Liu's life not only covers his past, but also looks toward the future and his struggle to create a new world: a beautiful story that has yet to be written. The Liu Xiaobo that Yu Jie portrays here is not a distant saint, but rather a real human being who comes to life in these pages. -- Yu Ying-shih, Emeritus, Princeton University

Author Information

Yu Jie is an award-winning writer, one of China’s most prominent essayists and critics, and a leading democracy activist and coauthor of Charter 08. His work has been banned in China since 2004, and he was arrested and tortured in 2010 for his close ties with Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo. Because of Yu's work on this biography, he was subjected to lengthy house arrest, as well as to kidnap and torture. A senior official in the Beijing security apparatus threatened Yu with a harsh prison sentence if he proceeded with his plans to publish. Yu had no choice but to leave China, bringing his wife and son with him to the United States in 2012. HC Hsu is the author of Love Is Sweeter (2013) and Middle of the Night (2015). An award-winning essayist and short-story writer, his works have appeared in both English and Chinese. His translations of Hu Lancheng, Chu Tien-wen, Chen Kehua, Yuan Ch’iung-ch’iung, and others also have been widely published.

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