"In Search of My Homeland" : a reading and art exhibit by Er Tai Gao
Department: Intl. Center for Writing and Trans.
Date and Time: November 5, 2009 | 6:00 PM-7:30 PMEvent Location: Humanities Gateway 1010
Event Details
Writer Er Tai Gao reads from his new book, In Search of My Homeland: A Memoir of a Chinese Labor Camp (Harper Collins, Oct 2009).
Opening remarks by Perry Link, UCR Chancellorial Chair for Innovative Teaching with an introduction by Dr. Robert Dorsett, translator
In 1957 at the age of 22, Er Tai Gao wrote an essay stating that freedom was essential to the creation of beauty, and that beauty, in turn, was an expression of freedom. For that, Gao was labeled a "rightist" by the regime under Chairman Mao and sentenced to three years of hard labor in China's central desert. Ninety percent of the inmates died during the three years he was imprisoned. Over the next 30 years, Gao was sent to labor and reeducation camps several times because of his outspoken views. While relatively little is known in the West about the Chinese gulags or those who suffered in them, Gao's riveting memoir, IN SEARCH OF MY HOMELAND: A Memoir of a Chinese Labor Camp (Harper Collins, Oct 2009) chronicles the author's years of political persecution under China's Communist government and provides an insider's look at this hidden side of Chinese history.
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact icwt@uci.edu.
This event is co-sponsored by the UCI School of Law and the Department of History with support provided by the UCI Bookstore.