2014/06/01 21:06:49
Taipei, June 1 (CNA) A poetry anthology was released Sunday in Taipei to remember the Tiananmen Square massacre, a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in China in 1989.
“An Anthology of June Fourth Poetry” collects over 100 Chinese poems written between 1989 and 2014 about the massacre, commonly known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese, by around 100 poets, scholars and activists around the world.
Among them are poems by Chinese literary critic and jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, his wife Liu Xia, who is currently under house arrest in China, Wang Dan, a leader of the student-led protests in 1989, and Chinese-American poet Ha Jin.
Meng Junliang, a Hong Kong-based Chinese poet and chief editor of the book, said the Tiananmen Square massacre remains a taboo topic in China, but it should not be forgotten.
“Especially as writers and poets, as witnesses of the time… we should not put down our pens,” Meng said at the book launch.
Several of the authors, including Chinese writers Yu Jie and Yang Xiaobin, attended the book launch and read their poems.
After weeks of pro-democracy protests in 1989, Chinese troops and tanks fired on civilians at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundreds to thousands.
(By Christie Chen)