Read more
Informationen zum Autor Jiang Qisheng was born in 1948. After ten years of hard agricultural labor during the Cultural Revolution, he obtained a master's degree in aerodynamics, which led to a university teaching post and work toward a PhD. However, for his involvement in the Tiananmen student prodemocracy movement, he was jailed for 18 months. Denied employment on release, he became a freelance writer. In 1999 he was given a longer sentence, which is the subject of this book. With Nobel prizewinner Liu Xiaobo, Jiang was one of the drafters of Charter 08 and remains an outspoken writer on civil liberties and human rights in China. Klappentext In 1999, the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, leading dissident Jiang Qisheng was given a four-year sentence for inviting the Chinese people to light candles to honor the victims. Drawn with indignant intensity from Jiang's time in prison, his memoirs offer compelling observations of two of the three modern, "civilized" Beijing jails in which he was held. Along with intriguing vignettes of his fellow prisoners, Jiang describes both brutally dehumanizing conditions and rare moments of unexpected kindness. Prisoners, used as slave labor, become "skinned" through malnutrition and exhaustion, while facing new depths of mental degradation. Throughout, however, Jiang retained his dignity, detached and perceptive intelligence, and concern for his fellow sufferers, guards included. Writing in his signature light and ironic style, Jiang's stories of prisoners, who come from the most primitive and impoverished layer of Chinese society, are related with vividness, insight, humor, and compassion. Dismayed by their fatalistic docility, the author asks, "Where lies China's hope? Can democracy ever take root in China?" The answers, surely, lie in the voices of those, like Jiang, who dare to speak out. Inhaltsverzeichnis Foreword by Andrew J. NathanIntroduction by Perry LinkPart I: The Detention CenterChapter 1: A Trip to the SouthChapter 2: Dark Clouds AppearChapter 3: A Sleepless NightChapter 4: In Section SevenChapter 5: Maintaining One's DignityChapter 6: Verbal Tussles During Preliminary ExaminationChapter 7: Peaceful Coexistence with Fellow PrisonersChapter 8: Avoiding Self-PityChapter 9: Death and Life by the WallChapter 10: Looking on the Bright SideChapter 11: The White Hole of Human RightsChapter 12: A Brief Look at Evidence of CorruptionChapter 13: Longing for BooksChapter 14: Chess and CardsChapter 15: Litigation RecordsChapter 16: The TrialChapter 17: Falungong Adherent Sun WeiChapter 18: Gao Shuo of the Electric SawChapter 19: Treated as Guilty Even without EvidenceChapter 20: Precious MessagesChapter 21: Occasional LonelinessChapter 22: Victims of Injustice and Crackdowns on CriminalsChapter 23: The Clank of Chains at DawnChapter 24: A Sketch of the Detention CenterChapter 25: The Campaign for DemocracyChapter 26: Reading the NewspapersChapter 27: The Taiwan QuestionChapter 28: "Give Birth Early and Often"Chapter 29: Teachers' Low Self-EsteemChapter 30: The Joy of BooksChapter 31: Blood on the Sleeping PlatformChapter 32: A Small Society in a Narrow RoomChapter 33: Three Encounters with FalungongChapter 34: When Would My Case Be Settled?Chapter 35: From Detention Center to Transfer CenterEpilogue to Part IPart II: In the Transfer CenterPrologueChapter 36: Encountering ProhibitionsChapter 37: Unwritten RulesChapter 38: A True April Fool's Day StoryChapter 39: A Frightening InterludeChapter 40: Visitors DayChapter 41: Guinness Record Levels of SufferingChapter 42: Others May Be Biased, but I Am ImpartialChapter 43: When the Cock Crows at Dawn, the System Is Even More CruelChapter 44: I've Never Been Afraid of Hard WorkChapter 45: The Long May Day HolidayChapter 46: The Unchanging Transfer CenterEpilogue to Part IIThe Day I Was Released From Prison...
