{"id":1785,"date":"2014-06-24T02:07:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T02:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=1785"},"modified":"2014-06-24T02:07:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T02:07:00","slug":"if-im-not-speaking-that-means-im-dead-an-interview-with-liao-yiwu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/if-im-not-speaking-that-means-im-dead-an-interview-with-liao-yiwu","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIf I\u2019m Not Speaking That Means I\u2019m Dead\u201d: An Interview with Liao Yiwu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #444444;line-height: 1.7\">by Tienchi Martin-Liao \/ January 7, 2014<\/span><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sampsoniaway.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Liao-and-Tienchi-e1387558191728.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Liao Yiwu (right) with Tienchi Martin-Liao in front of House Poem. Photo: TJ Murphy<br \/>\nOn a warm May day in Pittsburgh in 2013, Liao Yiwu sat down with his long-time friend and colleague Tienchi Martin-Liao.<!--more--> They talked about literature, emigration, and politics. If they had tried to have this conversation in China, it could have been considered illegal.<\/p>\n<p>Liao Yiwu, the writer, poet, and \u201cmemory keeper\u201d has been living in Germany since 2011, when he escaped China after being repeatedly banned from leaving the country. In 1990 Liao Yiwu was imprisoned for four years for his poem \u201cMassacre,\u201d which he wrote in response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. His experiences in prison became the basis for his book For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet\u2019s Journey Through a Chinese Prison. Liao Yiwu is also the author of The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up and God is Red.<\/p>\n<p>Living in Germany, Tienchi Martin-Liao is the president of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, whose members include Liao Yiwu and imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize-winner Liu Xiaobo. She is a writer, researcher, and activist who currently writes \u201cBlind Chess\u201d as a Sampsonia Way columnist. Her close friendship with Liao Yiwu helped him have his work published in Germany.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sampsoniaway.org\/interviews\/2014\/01\/07\/if-i%E2%80%99m-not-speaking-that-means-im-dead-an-interview-with-liao-yiwu\/\" target=\"_blank\">For detail please visit here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Tienchi Martin-Liao \/ January 7, 2014 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/if-im-not-speaking-that-means-im-dead-an-interview-with-liao-yiwu\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,95,91],"tags":[94,40,101],"views":1297,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1786,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions\/1786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}