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What the critics say

It is ironic that today, while the Chinese government is very concerned to be seen as a leading world power, many Chinese people from all walks of life continue to be deprived of their basic rights. In this collection of poems entitled June Fourth Elegies, Liu Xiaobo pays a moving tribute to the sacrifices made during the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Considering the writer himself remains imprisoned, this book serves as a powerful reminder of his courage and determination and his great hearted concern for the welfare of his fellow country men and women
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It's the nature of language to pitch itself against the smothering oneness of the state. Words want to be free. Liu Xiaobo's crime is called 'an incitement to subvert state power.' This is an administrative term for the exercise of free speech - the very activity, Liu writes, that is the mother of truth... We try to imagine the nightmarish reality of the closed trial, the confiscated life. We feel the force of Liu Xiaobo's efforts to transcend what he calls 'a paralysis of spirit'. And we see his face in his words
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One cannot talk about these poems strictly in terms of poetry. They are a monument of rage against the murderous powers of injustice, one man's relentless counter-argument to the logic of totalitarian oppression - twenty years of defiance in the form of elegies to the fallen, the 'departed souls' of Tiananmen Square. The imprisoned Liu Xiaobo is surely one of the world's most ardent defenders of human freedom, of the right of every person to live in an open society governed by laws, not guns
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What really speaks are the 20 elegies, all beautifully translated by the Chinese-American poet and publisher Yang
- Independent