"This invaluable book shows the range and depth of Liu Xiaobo's interests, concerns, and thoughts. It helps us know this remarkable man intimately. As a document, this book bears another kind of witness, both personal and historical."
—Ha Jin, author of Waiting, winner of the National Book Award
About Joanne
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her fiction includes regional bestseller The Dark Path to the River and No Marble Angels. She has also published fiction and essays in books and anthologies, including Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement and Remembering Arthur Miller.
Praise for Joanne's Fiction
"Well-written, thematically rich. I fell in love with the characters. I didn’t want the pleasure to end."
—Barbara Kingsolver, Poisonwood Bible
"...the writer’s strengths—honesty, compassion and the ability to present such memorable scenes."
—Jill McCorkle, The New York Times Book Review
Journalism
A former reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, Joanne has won awards for her nonfiction and published hundreds of articles in newspapers and magazines, including World Literature Today and international commentary in The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, GlobalPost, and others.
Latest Blog Post
PEN International celebrates its Centenary in 2021. I’ve been active in PEN for more than 30 years in various positions and now as an International Vice President Emeritus. With memories stirring and file drawers of documents and correspondence bulging, I am a bit of a walking archive and have been asked by PEN International to write down memories. I hope this personal PEN journey will be of interest.
A few days before I flew out to Dakar, Senegal for a PEN conference in November 2004, my youngest son, a Marine in Iraq, called and told my husband and me that we would not hear from him for a while. We knew, without being told, that the U.S. and British troops were likely about to return to Fallujah, the center of the insurgency. Civilians there had been advised to get out of the city, and they were leaving.