Ai Weiwei's autobiography,
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
, could not be easy.
And, in fact, these 432 pages hide under the poetic or journalistic titles of these chapters - from
"Limpid Night"
to
"A Feast of Crabs"
- a two-part account of the life of the Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei , through that of his father, the poet Ai Qing (1910-1996), friend of Mao then victim of his dogmatic purges and his Cultural Revolution.
Read also
Ai Weiwei: art is a fight
A terribly cruel story, like the mores of imperial China and the ravages of communist ideology, which intended to respond to it.
The book, first published in New York by Penguin Random House, has the fluidity of intense American books where the worst moments in human history are chiselled by the facts.
This striking parallel between father and son found in Buchet-Chastel and his Swiss editor, Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, all the sensitive seriousness that befits him.
As a child, in November, 1959, with his father, Ai Qing, in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
Personal archives Ai Wei Wei/Editions Buchet-Chastel
He tells it precisely, without the overdose of compliments...
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