For a Song and a Hundred Songs
A Poet's Journey through a Chinese Prison
$34.49
- Paperback
432 pages
- Release Date
22 May 2013
Summary
In China, the government continues to erase and distort the collective memory of the country to suit its all-encompassing political agenda. However, an individual’s memory, with its psychic encoding and indelible scars of oppression, will forever hide a deeply etched record in blood and intellect. Its imprint, like history, can never be erased.
In June 1989, Liao Yiwu witnessed the Tiananmen Square protest. The young poet, who had until then led an apolitical bohemian existence, found…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781922079213 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1922079219 |
| Author: | Liao Yiwu |
| Publisher: | Text Publishing |
| Imprint: | The Text Publishing Company |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 432 |
| Release Date: | 22 May 2013 |
| Weight: | 565g |
| Dimensions: | 235mm x 156mm x 33mm |
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Critics Review
‘For a Song and a Hundred Songs is a superhuman feat of memory…Inmates argue, fight, philosophise, manipulate and torment others but in all of them Liao Yiwu reveals an individual personality and voice. His writing switches from the sarcastic to the reflective, from the descriptive to the immediacy of quick-fire dialogue. His interactions with prisoners on death row…are especially poignant, as he recalls their desperate wish to live…’ – Books Now
‘Yiwu’s style is earthy and frank. It is painfully honest, recording how sometimes his own response to the brutality was to be occasionally weak, cruel, self-serving, or violent. But although he also records the savagery of other prisoners he shows too that there are poignant moments of tenderness and that the spark of humanity is never extinguished.’ – ANZ LitLovers
‘Liao Yiwu’s unflinching account of his years in the Chinese gulag rises above the merely sadistically gothic…because of his self-deprecating honesty and his poet’s gift for the devastating image.’ * North and South *
‘Liao’s book reminds us that the current prosperity in China has been hard won, and his palpable pain as he records a troubled and even tragic life is evidence of the shortcomings of art to cope with some of the harsher realities of history.’ * Good Reading *
About The Author
Liao Yiwu
Liao Yiwu is a writer, musician, and poet from Sichuan, China. His book of unforgettable life stories from China’s underworld, The Corpse Walker, was published in 2011. Liao has received numerous awards for his work, including the prestigious 2012 Peace Prize awarded by the German Book Trade.
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