Tiananmen Follies: Prison Memoirs And Other Writings

by Dai Qing

The prison writings of Dai Qing, China's best-known investigative journalist and environmentalist, offer insight into the mental and physical tribulations that accompany imprisonment by an authoritarian government devoted to squeezing out confessions of wrongdoing by its political opponents. Written in 1989-90 during her incarceration in Beijing's notorious Qingcheng prison, this is a spirited and courageous (and at times mournful) set of writings recounting her struggle with the travails of imprisonment for unstated crimes following the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Along with articles written from prison looking back upon and analyzing the Tiananmen movement, and fascinating diary entries about prison life, the book contains verbatim translations of Dai's forced confessions to her jailers. In these confessions, with her life in the balance, she alternates between ironically praising the Party in its own language surreptitiously poking fun at it and forceful defenses of her views and her right to free expression. As she boldly writes in these My major concern was in demonstrating the courage of intellectuals to speak out and criticize. ... I believe that, for scholars and artists, there should be no ideological constraints whatsoever as long as their words and actions abide by the law. Unfortunately [she archly wrote to her inquisitors], this view is apparently not in line with the present spirit of the Party. These prison writings are gutsy, at times witty, and filled with vivid descriptions of the absurdities of political imprisonment in any system. They exhibit the spirit of a woman who has gone on, after her release from prison, to win a number of major international environmental, human rights, and freedom-of-publication awards.

Paperback

Published November 1, 2004