Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Worldwide Reading Day for Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaiobo

This evening I attended a reading as part of the Worldwide Reading Day for Liu Xiaiobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident writer who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

Scottish writers read from Liu Xiaiobo's moving poems to his wife Liu Xia, who has herself not been heard of since her husband was awarded the Nobel Prize. They were joined by students from Napier University who read from poems they had written to Liu Xiaiobo and from his work and from the Chinese press.

It was a really moving event, good to see writers gathering together to highlight the fact that the freedom of expression that we take for granted is not something that is enjoyed everywhere in the world.

The event was organised by Scottish PEN Writers in Prison who actively campaign on behalf of imprisoned writers. It took place at Wordpower Books, Edinburgh's excellent radical independent bookshop, which has a brilliant selection of interesting books that are difficult to find anywhere else and hold some great events too!