{"id":2404,"date":"2014-03-07T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T01:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2404"},"modified":"2014-02-28T10:26:11","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T02:26:11","slug":"aaww-interview-with-liao-yiwu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2404","title":{"rendered":"AAWW Interview with Liao Yiwu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Jiayang Fan interviews Liao Yiwu \u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66, author of For a Song and a Hundred Songs<\/em>, for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop<\/a>. Interview translated into English by Liz Carter. Here’s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

Do you think that you, as a Chinese writer, must take a stance on China\u2019s government? Or do you think, as someone who writes literature, you do not necessarily need to have anything to do with politics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The difference between myself and the dictatorship is a difference of aesthetics. I am a person who writes stories. The further removed from politics and power I am, the better. Unfortunately, they feel that a person who tells stories is guilty of subversion of state power. Furthermore, I didn\u2019t want to express any political ideas in my writing. Like I just mentioned, political views can show up in a different way. Political correctness, in a book, is like standing on the side of reason, but one of the most basic things about being an intellectual is this: you must have doubt and you must ask questions, even for your own writing, yourself, your weaknesses. You have to keep that skepticism. Many writers, while describing politics or the Chinese Communist Party, stop asking questions of and being skeptical toward themselves. I think this is far removed from that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

In the beginning of the book, you wrote that in a talk with Michael Day, a Canadian friend and one of the first foreigners you became close to in China, he really wanted you to participate in the protests at Tiananmen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes<\/p>\n

And then you asked, \u201cDo you think you love China more than me?\u201d That line really stayed with me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That guy is more Chinese than I am.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click the image above for the full interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jiayang Fan interviews Liao Yiwu \u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66, author of For a Song and a Hundred Songs, for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Interview translated into English by Liz Carter. Here’s an excerpt: Do you think that you, as a Chinese writer, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1339,518,1340,330],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-CM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2863,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2863","url_meta":{"origin":2404,"position":0},"title":"Liao Yiwu’s Massacre","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/68644515 Liao Yiwu \u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66 performs \"Massacre\" \u5927\u5c60\u6740 at the New York Public Library. Uncredited translation by Michael Day.","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2160,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2160","url_meta":{"origin":2404,"position":1},"title":"Liao Yiwu on BBC World Service","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"August 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A BBC feature on Liao Yiwu \u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66, along with commentary by Michael Day. Click on the image to listen to the broadcast.","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2093,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2093","url_meta":{"origin":2404,"position":2},"title":"P T Smith on Liao Yiwu’s For a Song and a Hundred Songs","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"At 3% P. T. Smith reviews For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet's Journey through a Chinese\u00a0Prison by Liao Yiwu\u00a0\u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66 and translated by Wenguang Huang. Smith doesn't know family names from given names in Chinese, but that doesn't keep him from writing a compelling review. Here's a passage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/images\/3212.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1212,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1212","url_meta":{"origin":2404,"position":3},"title":"Frankfurt Book Fair Peace Prize for Liao Yiwu","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"September 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From Publishing Perspectives: In honor of his \u201celoquent and fearless battle against political repression,\u201d the German Publishers and Booksellers Association has awarded its prestigious 2012 Peace Prize to Chinese dissident writer Liao Yiwu [\u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66], who walked out on his native country and landed in Germany a year and a half\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1972,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1972","url_meta":{"origin":2404,"position":4},"title":"VIiv","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"June 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/H6OVMu6m9FU Liao Yiwu, Meng Huang, Maria Rosen: Performance in\u00a0Stockholm Liao Yiwu\u00a0\u5ed6\u4ea6\u6b66 reading his poem \u201cThe Massacre\u201d, Meng Huang \u5b5f\u714c reading his \u201cLetter to Liu Xiaobo in Prison\u201d and Maria Ros\u00e9n singing the Swedish folksong \u201cBallad from Rokn\u00e4s\u201d, 19th March 2013, 9 pm, Sergels Torg, Stockholm, Sweden [from Martin Winter] A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/H6OVMu6m9FU\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2252,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2252","url_meta":{"origin":2404,"position":5},"title":"After this, No More Mo Yan","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that \"Dissident writer Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature Thursday morning for her fiction critical of the Canadian regime,\" the year of Mo Yan's Nobel has ended. So the last Mo Yan update from this blog will be a link to this interview with Liao Yiwu\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"Canadian author Alice Munro (PETER MUHLY\/AFP\/Getty Images)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/worldviews\/files\/2013\/10\/88678447.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/worldviews\/files\/2013\/10\/88678447.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/worldviews\/files\/2013\/10\/88678447.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/worldviews\/files\/2013\/10\/88678447.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2405,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404\/revisions\/2405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}