I Have No Enemies: The Life and Legacy of Liu Xiaobo

There are very few icons in the chronicles of the Chinese struggle against state repression. This meticulously researched and wonderfully crafted biography will help change that. Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Prize winner who died while incarcerated, lived a life of extraordinary courage, sacrifice, and achievement. He played a critical role in negotiating a safe route for students to withdraw from Tiananmen Square during protests there in 1989, led the post-1989 Citizen Rights Defense movement, and endured frequent periods of detention and imprisonment. The authors trace the personal journey of a very public life that was replete with contradictions: Liu was an eloquent public speaker, but he also stuttered; he was fiercely independent but prone to constant “self-questioning and self-revising”; and a failed marriage paved the way for later happiness in romantic love. Readers will be most moved by Liu’s humility in his constant learning of the craft of social protest and his many moral self-examinations. He signed divorce papers in prison on account of his own past mistreatment of his wife; he passed up opportunities for exile from China several times and repeatedly chose to face the state’s repressive machine instead. The book’s title aptly captures his quest for love, tolerance, and compassion. His moral example may prove to be his most enduring legacy.