They marched under this banner – ‘In Politics we want Democracy and in Art Freedom’
1989 ? NO 1979!
1978- 1981 was China’s Beijing Spring . Experience it through Little Winter’s eyes in Brushstrokes in Time, my novel based on REAL events.
The authenticity of Brushstrokes in Time is down to the artist Qu Leilei, seen holding the calligraphy poster in the pic . He was in Tiananmen Square as a teenager on August 18 1966 when Mao and Lin Biao told the million and a half young people ‘to destroy the old.’ He was there with his father, the famous (in China) novelist Qu Bo in 1976 when the people of Beijing defied the Gang of Four by mourning Zhou Enlai. Wei Jingsheng, the leader of the democracy movement in 1979 believes Qu Leilei saved his life by recording his trial. Leilei was one of the 5 founders of the Stars Art Movement. Ai Weiwei’s career began with them. As a NO-ONE was telling their courageous story, this crazy English woman decided to do it. I invented the main characters in the novel but the historical background is authentic.