Sales blamed for canning of dissident's reading

Liao Yiwu. Photo / DAPD

Persecuted Chinese writer Liao Yiwu's Auckland speaking event has been cancelled - officially because of low ticket sales, but political pressure and ambivalence by the University of Auckland may have played a part.

"It was for purely financial reasons. The ticket sales have been regrettably very low," said general manager Anne Rodda of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.

Liao Yiwu, who was imprisoned in China for four years for being a "counter-revolutionary", barred from travelling to literary festivals abroad and forced to sign a guarantee not to publish his books, was to have performed his poem Massacre in Auckland on Saturday.

The poem is a condemnation of the Chinese Government's bloody crackdown on the 1989 student protest in Tiananmen Square.

Ms Rodda denied the university, which was providing the venue for the event, withdrew its support.

"The university did not put us under any pressure. They are a very valuable sponsor to the festival," she said.

Event volunteer Dean Ding said he was told by organisers that they struggled to place advertisements or notices in the local Chinese media, and postings of the event on Chinese online forums were also removed.

Mr Ding said he was told by a festival director that the Chinese media had been "pressured" by the Chinese Embassy to do so.

In an email, festival acting artistic director Stephanie Johnson said delays by the university in confirming its booking to hold the event at its Business School contributed to the low ticket sales.

"The university was slow to confirm our venue, so marketing was delayed for three weeks," she said.

"It has been very hard to drum up much interest through our publicity."

The university denied it took three weeks to confirm the booking.

Ms Rodda said Ms Johnson was no longer contracted with the festival.

Ms Johnson could not be contacted yesterday, but a Chinese Consulate spokeswoman denied her embassy had "pressured anyone to cancel the event".

Ticketing agent iticket.co.nz would not say how many tickets had been sold, but told a would-be purchaser yesterday that sales had been "moderate". It is offering refunds.

Liao's translator, Wenguang Huang, told the Herald he wasn't aware of other reasons for the event being cancelled but said it reminded him of a similar occurrence with a university in southern California which had invited Liao to give a talk.

"When organisers saw on the programme that Liao was going to perform his poem, Massacre, they rescinded the invitation, saying Liao's works were too political."

Book winners

Five Weekend Herald readers have won copies of The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu. They are: Joella Allott, Wanganui; Simon Angelo, North Shore; Gail Romano, Glen Eden; Masha Stanton, Forrest Hill and Robby Zhang, Mt Roskill.