Shen Youlian, who sometimes writes under the pen name Zi Dian, was born in Guizhou Province on December 26, 1953, the 60th birthday of Chairman Mao.
He graduated from middle school and became a factory worker in 1970, working his way up to be chief of production and then deputy director of the factory. He began teaching himself law in 1986 and subsequently received a law degree from Guizhou University, and has gone on to write books and articles challenging official orthodoxies, some of which, as Mr. Shen recounts in the following piece, resulted in detention on charges of inciting subversion of State power.
He is a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center.
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