from the Australian Chinese authorities have barred Liao Yiwu from travelling to Australia for a festival for “security reasons” and advised him against publishing his works abroad, organisers said Monday.
The outspoken Liao had been slated to appear several times at this month’s Sydney Writers’ Festival, including at a forum on the Asian powerhouse’s growing global influence and an event at which he would perform his poetry.
Festival organisers said Chinese officials had denied Liao permission to leave the country to attend the festival, just as it had stopped him from travelling to the United States for a literary festival earlier this year.
The author of “The Corpse Walker”, which records the lives of those of China’s forgotten classes including a grave robber and a delusional peasant who believes he is an emperor, was also warned against publishing his works overseas, they said.
His poetry includes the epic “Massacre”, written after the 1989 killing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, and his books have been translated into English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish.