How Liu Xia stepped out of the shadow of Liu Xiaobo to rebuild her art career

The poetry and art of Liu Xia, the widow of Chinese dissident and Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, was shared by the first Western writer to interview her when she arrived in Germany having been released from house arrest in Beijing.

Nick Frisch was writing for The New Yorker when he met Liu Xia, who was beginning to rebuild her life and career following almost a decade under the watch of Chinese plain-clothed police officers. He shared photos at the January 21 club lunch of Liu Xia’s art and poetry while discussing her life before and after meeting Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic, professor, human rights activist, and fellow poet. Liu Xiaobo died in prison in 2017 having spent the last 10 years of his life in prison for his involvement in campaigns to end the one-party Communist rule in China.

Watch the talk here