CHINESE dissident writer and poet Liao Yiwu will finally appear in Australia this week – after having been banned from travelling by Chinese authorities 17 times in the last three years.
In May, Liao, deemed a counter-revolutionary, was banned from attending the Sydney Writers’ Festival but in early July, he slipped out of China and into Vietnam, via a small border crossing he won’t reveal, and with the help of contacts and friends, made his way to Germany.
Liao’s publisher is German, and the author has settled in Germany in self-imposed exile, free of the censorship he faces in his own country, where his tales of ”hidden” China are suppressed.
Speaking through a translator from Munich, ahead of his Australian visit this week, Liao says he is ”totally happy” to be free to publish his works.
”This is really wonderful feeling – this cat-and-mouse play with the police and the state ceased finally,” he says.
