Liao Yiwu

Liao Yiwu, born in 1958 in Sichuan Province, grew up in deep poverty. In 1989, he wrote the poem Massaker (“Massacre”) about the night on Tiananmen Square, for which he was imprisoned for four years and severely mistreated. In 2009, his book Fräulein Hallo und der Bauernkaiser was published. In 2011, when Für ein Lied und hundert Lieder appeared in Germany, Liao Yiwu managed to leave China.

Since his departure for Germany, the following titles, among others, have been published: Die Kugel und das Opium (2012), Die Dongdong-Tänzerin und der Sichuan-Koch (2013), Gott ist rot (2014), Die Wiedergeburt der Ameisen (2016), the documentary novel Wuhan (2022), and 18 Gefangene (2025). His works have been widely circulated in Europe and the United States and translated into more than 20 languages, including German, English, French, Japanese, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Danish, Czech, Slovak, and others.

He has received numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (2012), the Geschwister-Scholl Prize (2011), the Kapuściński Prize for Literary Reportage (2012), the Václav Havel Prize from the “Breaking the Silence” Foundation (2018), and the Luigi Amicone Prize for Journalism (2023) in Italy. He has also been nominated multiple times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Liao is also a prominent human rights activist who used his influence to urge the German government, parliament, media, and the American press to work for the release of Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo from prison. Although this effort was ultimately unsuccessful, Liu Xia, Liu Xiaobo’s widow, was released by the Chinese government and allowed to travel to Germany due to international pressure.

Liao Yiwu’s books have been reviewed in numerous renowned media outlets, including Der Spiegel, Die Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Philippe Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, called Liao Yiwu “the most original and brilliant Chinese writer of our time.”

Liao Yiwu lives in Berlin.