Liao Yiwu: Enemy of the Cultural Revolution and a friend of all classes of society
– China
Liao Yiwu (廖亦武, also known as Lao Wei 老威) is a Chinese author, reporter, musician, and poet born in 1958. In 1966, his father was branded as a counter-revolutionary during the Cultural Revolution. Liao’s parents filed for divorce to protect their children. His mother was later arrested for attempting to sell government issued coupons on the black market. Liao was imprisoned in 1990 as a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party. After his release, his family disowned him, and he opened a coffee shop and began publishing poetry by Chinese dissidents.
His books, many of which contain interviews with ordinary people from the lower classes of Chinese society, such as those affected by natural disasters, have been published in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but are banned in mainland China. Many of them have been translated into Spanish, English, French, German, Polish and Czech, among other languages. After long-term persecutions, he managed to leave for Germany, where he has lived since 2011.