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The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings Paperback – August 1, 1998

by Wei Jingsheng (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 10 ratings
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Internationally recognized as a major publishing event, The Courage to Stand Alone is a collection of prison writings from the world's most famous political prisoner. Wei Jingsheng, who has spent nearly two decades in prison for "counterrevolutionary" activities, confirms his status as a symbol for Chinese democracy, as he eloquently and fearlessly confronts a regime that not only fails to protect basic human rights but actively violates them. Devoid of ideological rant, the letters to Deng Xiaoping and other officials capture the verve, intelligence, audacity, and mordant humor of a man obstinately struggling to bring freedom to the world's most populous country. Also included are touching letters to his family, excerpts of his groundbreaking political essays, and his moving defense statement at trial.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Publishing Group
  4. Publication date
    August 1, 1998
  5. Dimensions
    5.06 x 0.76 x 7.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0140275355
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0140275353
  8. See all details
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About the Author

Wei Jingsheng, a former Red Guard, was working as an electrician at the Beijing Zoo in 1978 when he became a leader in the Democracy Wall movement. An outspoken critic of government policy and advocate of individual rights since then, he was imprisoned in China from 1979 to 1993. Rearrested and imprisoned again in early 1994, he is now serving a fourteen-year sentence. In 1996 he won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Publishing Group; Reprint edition (August 1, 1998)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140275355
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140275353
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.06 x 0.76 x 7.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 10 ratings

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Jingsheng Wei

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
10 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars You are a miracle my friend...
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2022
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If only Wei was President of China we would all live in a better world...

Hope you can come to New Zealand one day... That would make Xi Yinping hot under the collar...
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Timothy Ritter
5.0 out of 5 stars Forbidden reading in China, required reading everywhere else
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 1998
The lack of heroes these days has become a truism. Our political leaders are beset by satyriasis and mendacity. Our sports icons gobble steroids, routinely violate the terms of their parole, and sometimes even behead their wives.
That makes it surprising to encounter a genuine hero, which the author of The Courage To Stand Alone certainly is. It is doubly strange that he should emerge from China, the land of groupthink and hyperconformity. Who would have thought that a child of the Cultural Revolution would become a major force for decency and dignity even as those qualities were being rendered quaint and passe by the rush for market share in the New Global Economy?
When Wei Jingsheng was first put into prison and began writing the letters that make up the bulk of To Stand Alone, Mandela had been in prison for 17 years, Solzhenitsyn had just published Gulag in English, and the concept of dissent was unknown in China. When Wei was released in 1997 and flew to the US after having served 18 years in China's gulag (known there as laogai), Mandela was president of South Africa, Solzhenitsyn had returned to a free Russia, and Deng had transformed China from a socialist police state to a plutocratic police state. With all the stuff in our hardware stores and clothing shops bearing the Made in China tag, you might even think China had been transformed into a free society. You would be mistaken to think that, however. Wei was imprisoned for exercising one of the simplest and most basic rights, that of free speech. He published a magazine. In it, he urged the Chinese Communist Party to honor all the grand promises it made in the constitutions it churned out from time to time, promises like "The People have the right to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write dazibao (large character posters posted on walls in public places for all to read)".
Wei had begun his career as a dissident by putting up one such dazibao: his essay "Democracy: The Fifth Modernization". This document (included in To Stand Alone) is a piece of impassioned logic which a Jefferson or Hancock would be proud to sign. He wrote it and posted it the same night on Beijing's Democracy Wall. Unlike the others who posted writings there, Wei left his name and number. That wasn't safe, but Wei believed the Chinese were getting a worldwide reputation for spinelessness, thanks to people like Deng and Lin Biao who, during the reign of Mao Zedong, had taken the craft of brown-nosing and sycophancy to new depths.
In 1979 Deng was just beginning his reign, and many thought he was a new kind of leader, which he was, in some ways. In other ways he was the oldest kind of leader there is: a tyrant. In his magazine, Wei identified him as dictator-in-the-making a full 10 years before Deng ordered the murder of hundreds of students in Tiananmen Square. That prediction put Wei in prison, the special Chinese kind of prison where you are expected to confess your "errors" and "crimes".
There was a certain amount of international pressure on China, so Wei probably could have gotten out early for confessing his "crimes". But he had that thing about backbone, about standing upright for what you believe in. He was, it must be noted, a little stubborn. Actually, more than a little stubborn. Actually, you know nothing about stubborn until you read this book. Picture David Niven going into the oven in Bridge On The River Kwai for insisting on being treated like an officer according to the Geneva Convention. Now picture him doing that every day for 18 years, and you have some idea of what Wei went through. Not an oven, but a box without windows, very little food, very little heat in a region bordering Tibet, no medical care, sleep made impossible, beatings, solitary confinement for months on end...All these measures notwithstanding, Wei would not confess to a crime he had not committed. He wouldn't even get impolite. In his letters from prison, he demands the basic rights he's been stripped of in a tone less harsh than I use on my neighbor's barking dog. Reading these letters one occasionally gets the feeling he's been detained through some silly bureaucratic mix-up. Of course, he wasn't. He was thrown into the largest system of concentration camps that yet exists on the planet, just like millions of his compatriots. He's out now, but the others are still there, doing slave labor, starving, being executed by the score, involuntarily donating their organs to international markets...
When the Chinese Communist Party falls, as all brutal, sadistic regimes inevitably do, this book of letters and one landmark essay will be remembered as one of the chief causes of its demise.
Wei, if you read this, I would urge you to post Democracy: The Fifth Modernization on this site. It's common for authors to put excerpts of their books here, and that essay would be a perfect sample. I doubt the Party will be able to have it removed.
14 people found this helpful
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David R
5.0 out of 5 stars Wei: dissident and intellectual
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2001
Wei Jingsheng is well known as China's leading dissident, but this book also establishes him as one of China's leading intellectuals. He has the courage to see and to say what others in China cannot. His letter to Deng Xiaoping about Tibet is an extraordinarily powerful piece of writing. It is worth buying the book for this alone.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Tianyang Zhao
5.0 out of 5 stars Wei Jingsheng deserves the Nobel Peace Prize
Reviewed in Canada on August 31, 2021
Verified Purchase
Even when I read Wei Jingsheng's letters today, 20 or 30 years later, I can still feel Wei's powerful courage.
Wei Jingsheng is a hero, one of the world's greatest fighters for human rights.
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Frederique
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 4, 2021
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Powerful and moving... a story bursting with honesty and wisdom. A rare read.
One person found this helpful
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