Liao Yiwu
Review
The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu is one of those rare books that doesn’t just show you a different world—it drops you into the dirt and chaos of it, sits you down across from someone forgotten by history, and lets them talk. As someone who enjoys reportage, especially from places far outside my own cultural bubble, this hit all the right notes. The choice to structure it as a series of interviews is what makes it shine—it’s raw, honest, and deeply human, with none of the usual journalistic filter. You’re hearing people speak, not just being written about.
What really struck me was how clearly the book captures the brutality of Maoist and post-Maoist China, from the agricultural revolution to the Great Leap Forward, all the way to the Tiananmen Square massacre. But it’s not a book that wallows in horror—it’s more a quiet monument to survival and resilience. The people Liao interviews rarely rage or dramatize. Instead, they shrug, they reflect, they endure. There’s a kind of accidental stoicism in their words—not from philosophy books, but from life. And even if it comes more from Taoist or Buddhist roots, that “sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy, you just go on” attitude really stuck with me.
Surprisingly, despite the heavy topics, it’s a very readable book. Both the Polish and English translations did a great job keeping the language accessible without losing its weight. The translator’s note explains this was intentional—Liao chose to preserve the simplicity of how people actually spoke to him, and it works. It keeps things grounded, keeps the focus on the people, not the prose.
In the end, The Corpse Walker isn’t just about politics or history—it’s a portrait of a nation’s shadow, told by the voices in the margins. If you’re even remotely interested in foreign cultures, or what it means to live under a regime that rewrites reality while you’re still breathing, this is absolutely worth your time.
Context
- Liao Yiwu is a Chinese writer, poet, and journalist born in 1958, known for his raw and unfiltered portrayals of marginalized voices in China. He was imprisoned after the Tiananmen Square Massacre for writing a long poem titled Massacre, and later became an exile due to his continued criticism of the Chinese regime.
- The book is a collection of 27 interviews with individuals from the fringes of Chinese society—gravediggers, professional mourners, lepers, former prisoners, street performers, and more. These stories give a bottom-up view of modern Chinese history, focusing on people often erased from the “official” narrative.
- Set mostly in the post-Mao era but deeply haunted by Maoist policies, the book reflects the lingering trauma of the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, Tiananmen, and China’s uneven modernization.
- Though not officially labeled as dissident literature, it’s banned in China, which says a lot about the political weight it carries.