Chinese dissident Liao Yiwu to give reading tour in Germany

Sep 16, 2010, 14:06 GMT

Berlin - Chinese regime-critic and author Liao Yiwu, who made his first public appearance outside China on Thursday after 14 unsuccessful attempts to leave the country, is to go on a reading tour across Germany.

The organiser of the Berlin International Literature Festival, which Liao is attending, said that the author would likely give readings of his controversial works in Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt and two other, as yet unconfirmed, cities.

'I'm looking forward to making a lot of contacts, and if I can't understand the language then as an author I can rely on my senses to enter into dialogue with others,' the 52-year-old writer, journalist and musician said at a press conference in the German capital.

Liao is most known in the West for his work The Corpse Walker, in which he presents interviews with people from 'the bottom rung' of Chinese society.

His epic poem, Massacre, which details the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings, led to his arrest. The German government has had repeated high-level contacts with China in a bid to gain permission for Liao to travel abroad. He was nevertheless hauled off a plane in Chengdu last March, as he prepared to fly to Germany for a literature festival in Cologne.

He had also earlier been prevented from attending the large Frankfurt Book Fair.

Liao was given a surprise permit to travel abroad for the festival on Tuesday.