A Sunday Times Bestseller
A thought-provoking work by a singular voice, this short, sharp essay invites us to critically reconsider power, ideology and the boundaries of free speech.
Invisible, invasive and widely taken for granted, censorship is a globalized force as much driven by commercial interests as political agendas. Ai Weiwei - artist, activist and one of the world's most influential cultural figures - has first-hand experience of its power. In this urgent piece of writing, he makes a rallying cry for free speech in an age shaped by big data, mass surveillance and intrusive new technologies of control.
Ai Weiwei examines how censorship persists both in the overt propagandizing and redactions of authoritarian regimes, as well as subtly within democratic frameworks, exploring how international corporations, cultural institutions, social media and so-called ideologies of 'freedom' have provided fertile ground for new, more insidious, suppressions.
Ai Weiwei, geboren 1957 in Peking, gehört zu den bedeutendsten Künstlern der Gegenwart. Aufgrund seines Einsatzes für Menschenrechte wurde er 2011 in China kurzzeitig inhaftiert, bevor er 2015 nach Deutschland flüchtete, wo er eine Gastprofessur an der Universität der Künste in Berlin annahm. 2019 verließ er Deutschland wieder in Richtung London, heute wohnt er in Portugal. Sein letztes Buch trägt den Titel "1000 Jahre Freud und Leid".
