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Human Rights Book Fair

  December 3, 2009 | Fordham Law School | NYC

Co-sponsored by Human Rights in China and the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice. Participating organizations include PEN American Center, the Independent Chinese PEN Center, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, International Campaign for Tibet, the Laogai Research Foundation, Qingxiang Press, Students for a Free Tibet, and the Uyghur American Organization.

The Human Rights Book Fair focuses on the freedom to write in China, and features writings that have been banned and censored by the Chinese government, many written by PEN colleagues from China, Tibet, and the Uighur Autonomous Region.

PEN Members read from these banned works, along with a panel discussion with Larry Siems, Director of PEN’s Freedom to Write and International Programs.      

AUDIO & MANUSCRIPTS

          • Martin Flaherty and Sharon Hom introduce the event   • Remarks and reading from Egg on Mao by Denise Chong       • Huang Xiang and Karen Swenson read “Listening to Mountains from behind Iron Bars” and “Solitary Confinement”   • Louis Nevaer reads a 2008 Letter to PEN by Xinna, wife of Hada       • Vivian Demuth reads from “How Big a Character is ‘Xin’” by Hu Shigen   • Catherine Porter reads from Tombstone by Yang Jisheng       • Minda Aloff reads “This year, No Losar” by Chad med sha and “Thus, We Vanish!” by an anonymous writer   • Sharon Olinka reads from Dragon Fighter: One Woman’s Epic Struggle for Peace with China by Rebiya Kadeer       • Anna Kushner reads from Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min   • Harry Wu reads from Laogai: The Machinery of Repression in China       • Remarks by Robert Bernstein   • Remarks by Ian Buruma       • David Auburn reads from The Courage to Stand Alone by Wei Jingsheng   • Meena Alexander reads from Beijing Coma by Ma Jian       • Maureen Howard reads from A Higher Kind of Loyalty by Liu Binyan   • Katie Fishman reads “My Teacher, My Enemy” by Liao Yiwu       • Michael Scammel reads from A China More Just by Gao Zhisheng   • Larry Siems reads from The Tiananmen Papers by Zhang Liang, Andrew Nathan, and Perry Link       • Ian McMahan reads from The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Li Zhisui   • Panel discussion with Larry Siems, Minky Worden, Tenzin Dorjee, and Huang Wen; moderated by Sharon Hom       • Daniel Meltzer reads from Will the Boat Sink the Water?: The Life of China’s Peasants by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao