Liao Yiwu

Liao Yiwu is a Chinese writer, poet, musician, and former political prisoner living in exile in Germany. His major works include the long poem Massacre; The Corpse Walker; God Is Red; the prison memoir For a Song and a Hundred Songs; and Wuhan, among dozens of other publications.

His works have been translated into more than twenty languages and have received numerous international awards. Among them are the 2012 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and the 2011 Geschwister Scholl Prize. He has also been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on multiple occasions.

Liao Yiwu's documentary novel Wuhan has attracted widespread international attention. In the German-speaking world, it became the best-selling book on COVID-19. In Italy, Wuhan was awarded the 2023 Luigi Amicone Journalism Prize. The award citation praised the book for giving voice to the suffering of the Chinese people at a time when much of the international media, in reporting on governments' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, was praising the "China model." Through Wuhan, Liao reveals how the Chinese government used the pandemic to establish "the most advanced surveillance system in human history."