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<DIV>What is Chinese literature about? What is art about, in any medium, time or
place? The reading for the imprisoned underground poet and activist Li Bifeng
李必豐 on June 3rd, 2013 in Vienna (<A
title="http://penclub.at/events/worldwide-reading-fur-li-bifeng/
CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://penclub.at/events/worldwide-reading-fur-li-bifeng/">http://penclub.at/events/worldwide-reading-fur-li-bifeng/</A>,
and see attached pdf) will include works by a diverse range of authors. Li
Bifeng has become known through his association with Liao Yiwu, the exiled poet
and documentary writer, now in Berlin. On his own, judging from his available
work and his literary impact in China, even in dissident circles, Li Bifeng
would not have become famous. This doesn't mean he is not worth reading. But he
has had little opportunity to find an audience, and not everything that is
available online now is as compelling as Liao Yiwu's signature poem Massacre, or
any other famous piece of writing in Chinese. Actually, none of the works by Li
Bifeng I have read up to now sound very dissident at all. They are "just art",
so to speak. He could have published them, as a different person.<BR></DIV>
<DIV>On May 3rd, 2013, we had a very interesting workshop and discussion at
Vienna University's East Asia Institute, on literature in East Asia. It was
initiated by Lena Springer, who invited Zhang Chengjue (Cheung Shing Kok) 張成覺,
expert on the year 1957 and the so-called Anti-Rightists-Campaign in China.
Zhang and Springer were inspired by Lu Xun expert Qian Liqun from Peking
University, who called for research on the late 1950s in China across
disciplines. The workshop in Vienna was about censorship, political changes,
publishing conditions and (self-)perceptions of artistic quality. Professor
Schirmer told us about a debate in South Korea more than 20 years ago. A big-wig
critic who became culture minister later published an essay, lamenting the lame
state of Korean literature. A poet responded and said he had poems that could
not be published, and his friends also had literature that could not be
published because it would be considered dangerous, unstable, unsettling. 不穩。The
critic said he didn't understand. Surely good art would be independent of
politics and would only need imagination and talent? Not so, the poet replied.
Art is potentially unsettling, if it is powerful art at all. The critic didn't
get it again. Sounded very much like Prof. Kubin and his friends in China. Also
like Taiwan 30 years ago, of course.<BR><BR>Besides works by Li Bifeng, the
reading for Li Bifeng in Vienna will include texts by <A
href="http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/distance-studies/"
target=_blank>Li Khin-huann</A> (Taiwan), <A
title="http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/birds-of-passage/
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href="http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/birds-of-passage/"
target=_blank>Shih Ming-te and Shih Ming-cheng </A>(Taiwan), famous fiction
writer Liu Zhenyun 劉震云 (Henan, Beijing), the female migrant worker poet <A
title="https://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/100-women-workers-%e9%83%91%e5%b0%8f%e7%90%bc%ef%bc%9a%e5%a5%b3%e5%b7%a5/
CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="https://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/100-women-workers-%e9%83%91%e5%b0%8f%e7%90%bc%ef%bc%9a%e5%a5%b3%e5%b7%a5/"
target=_blank>Zheng Xiaoqiong</A> 鄭小瓊 (Dongguan), famous iconoclastic poet
<A href="http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/white-snow-black-crows/"
target=_blank>Yi Sha</A> (Xi’an) and last but not least <A
href="https://erguotou.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/lilis-story/" target=_blank>Zhao
Siyun</A>, whose <A href="http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_54b574bb0100irr4.html"
target=_blank>poem for June 5th</A> was introduced by Michael Day on the MCLC
list in 2010. Maybe also <A
title="http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/farewell/
CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://erguotou.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/farewell/"
target=_blank>“Farewell to the 20th century” by Song Tik-lai</A> 宋澤萊, if we
have time. Or other stuff from Taiwan and other
places.<BR><BR>Martin<BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>