1000 years of joys and sorrows

In his widely anticipated memoir, Ai Weiwei—one of the world’s most famous artists and activists—tells a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own extraordinary life and the legacy of his father, Ai Qing, the nation’s most celebrated poet.

Hailed as “the most important artist working today” by the Financial Times and as “an eloquent and unsilenceable voice of freedom” by The New York Times, Ai Weiwei has written a sweeping memoir that presents a remarkable history of China over the la