Bei Ling

Bei Ling is a founder and former executive director of the Independent Chinese PEN Center.

"(China), poet and essayist, came to the United States in 1988 on an ex-change with a Chinese-language newspaper. After the Tiananmen Square protest, he stayed and founded Tendency Quarterly, a scholarly literary magazine. By 1998, Bei Ling began to travel to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, researching, writing, and editing Tendency. In 2000, he rented an apartment and opened editorial offices in Beijing. After printing the summer issue of Tendency in Beijing, he was detained for two weeks in August 2000 and charged with "illegal publication." Beijing security forces interrogated him and threatened a ten-year prison term. They offered leni-ency if he provided information about the identity of Chinese citizens who had helped to produce Tendency. Bei Ling refused. After an international protest, Chinese authorities levied a $24,000 fine and permitted him to return to the United States." 

"Bei Ling is on the Executive Board of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine, and a research associate at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research." 


 * Winner of 2001 HRW Hellman-Hammett Grant