Description
As rumours of a strange new illness in Wuhan spread via social media in China, 25-year-old citizen reporter Kcriss decides to travel to the epicentre of the disaster to try to find out what is really going on. He sees an ad for corpse carriers at a funeral home – Male or female, 16-50 years old, unafraid of ghosts - and decides to apply. He quickly realises that the official death figures bear no relation to what is happening in the local crematoria. But the brief moment when he can tell the truth to his followers on social media is soon over: he is discovered, followed and arrested by the security police – all documented live on the internet.
In this startlingly topical documentary novel, Liao Yiwu takes us into the heart of the crisis that unfolded in Wuhan and unpicks the secrecy and cover-up that surrounded the outbreak of the public health emergency that ravaged the world. Where did the virus come from and what happened in Wuhan? Protocols are buried and new lies cement the story of the party's heroic victory - propaganda that poisons people like the virus.
Table of Contents
To the Reader
Prelude: The Intruder
Chapter 1: A City Forced to Close
Chapter 2: A Viral Prison of French Origin
Chapter 3: Who’s Eating the Bats?
Chapter 4: Li Wenliang is Gone, The Truth is Dead
Chapter 5: Daily Life in Isolation
Chapter 6: An Asymptomatic Spreader
Chapter 7: Passing through No-man’s Land
Chapter 8: On Two Sides of the Border
Chapter 9: The Virus Leaves the Country
Chapter 10: Scientists Against ""Conspiracy Theories""
Chapter 11: Unrestricted Warfare
Chapter 12: His Imperial Majesty Arrives
Chapter 13: An Illegal Border Crosser Goes Home
Chapter 14: The Republic of Disappeared People – A Hitchcock Mystery
Epilogue: Wuhan Elegy
Appendices
How was Wuhan written?
The Blank Paper Revolution
History will Remember this Unprecedented Shout of Anger
Poem: My Sole Weapon is Spit
The Spirits of the Boundless Departed have Opened and Closed this Book: Thanks to the friends who participated in creating it
