MCLC: reading for Li Bifeng

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: reading for Li Bifeng
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WORLDWIDE READING FOR LI BIFENG ON 4 JUNE 2013

By calling for a worldwide reading on 4 June 2013 for the Chinese
underground poet, Li Bifeng, the international literature festival berlin
is demanding that the Chinese government release him from prison.

 
The poet and campaigner for democracy, Li Bifeng, wrote a report in 1998
about a courageous group of textile workers who blockaded a Chinese
motorway and sent a video recording of it to foreign human rights
organisations. In 1989, after he had been involved in the protest on
Tiananmen Square and on the run for six months, Li Bifeng was captured and
sentenced to twelve years imprisonment for ³economic crimes². In November
2012, the 48-year-old was sentenced to another 12 years, with no good
reason, without evidence and despite worldwide protests. The authorities
suspect him of having helped his friend, the author Liao Yiwu and holder
of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2012, to escape to Germany in
2011.

 
In the short phases in which Li Bifeng has been able to write, he has
written numerous poems, prose texts and plays as well as a novel. On the
anniversary of the massacre on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, which took
place on 4 June 1989, the Peter-Weiss Foundation for Art and Politics e.V.
and the international literature festival berlin have initiated a
worldwide reading for Li Bifeng. After a brief introduction to Li¹s work
and his biography, excerpts from his poems and prose texts will be read,
as well as an interview with him carried out by Liao Yiwu in 2005 and
published in the latter¹s book ³Die Kugel und das Opium² (En.: ³Bullets
and Opium², German edition published by Fischer in 2005).
 

Worldwide reading for Li Bifeng in Berlin

4 June 2013 at 7 pm, Martin-Gropius-Bau / Cinema
 
Frank Arnold will read, Ulrich Schreiber will chair the discussion between
Liao Yiwu and Peter Schneider
 

Admission free

The following, among others, have already joined the ilb¹s call for a
reading: Ai Weiwei, Wolf and Pamela Biermann, Yasmine El Rashidi, Elfriede
Jelinek, Liao Yiwu, Herta Müller, Salman Rushdie, Ha Jin and Peter Stephan
Jungk. You can find the names of more supporters at
www.worldwide-reading.com <http://www.worldwide-reading.com/>

 
13. internationales literaturfestival berlin | 04. - 14.09.2013
Chausseestraße 5, 10115 Berlin, Phone +49 (0) 30 - 27 87 86 65, Fax +49
(0) 30 - 27 87 86 85, presse at literaturfestival.com //
www.literaturfestival.com <http://www.literaturfestival.com/>