The battle for free speech in China

I haven’t been much drawn to erotica or political allegory, but Chen Xiwo’s I Love my Mum changed that. Relaxed, in an open necked shirt and jeans, at a recent English PEN event in Bloomsbury, Xiwo looked the antithesis of a persecuted writer. He appeared with a range of other speakers, from exiled writers to documentary filmmakers, to discuss contemporary literature in China.

Many writers at the event are trying to provoke, trying to inspire change. Xiwo, for instance, penned a novel gilded in matricide and incest to comment on the Chinese state, aptly titled, I Love my Mum. It was banned in 2007; the reason why was ‘classified information.’ With a slight grin and an energetic, even mischievous manner, Xiwo recounted his lawsuit against the censorship authorities which culminated in a secret court hearing where he was told I Love My Mum would remain banned because it ‘was not helpful to humanity… it was obscene and erotic and… it would influence people to do bad things’.