Independent Chinese PEN Center

A Speech for Receiving ICPC 2010 Freedom to Write Award

By Ye Fu

It is difficult for me to imagine that for mankind there exists such an award for writing in the name of “freedom”, those to whom she was awarded are just those Chinese writers who are silently exercising their natural right to “freedom of creation”.

There is hardly a nation of people with its scripts who, after being depicted for 3300 years, still cannot reach the origin of their free writing, but have to encourage their users in this way of awarding them for practicing their nature born of language.
Therefore, at the moment when this award was named, Chinese language became awkward against other languages of mankind. While I fortunately stand in this relatively lonely lineup of the awardees, I feel as a fish on a chopping board, my inner scales peeling off layer by layer – in front of the world, exposing the nudity of our dastard, weak and desperate struggle. Continue reading →

A speech for presenting the 8th Freedom to Write Award

Today, we, the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, present the 8th Freedom to Write Award to poet and writer Ye Fu. We have now added another glorious name to the list of recipients of the Freedom to Write Award, from which the testing rod of freedom of Chinese writing has another glowing mark on it.

Ye Fu, aka Zheng Shiping, was born in Lichuan County in Ensi, Hubei Province. He entered the Department of Chinese at Hubei Ethnic Studies Institute and enrolled at the writers’ programme in Wuhan University in 1986. He was assigned to work in a public security unit in 1988, but he left the public security to express his sympathy towards the students in 1989. He provided assistance to some pro-democracy activists but he was betrayed and was imprisoned for several years. He worked in publishing and editing for many years after he was released from prison. He is currently a freelance writer. Continue reading →