ABSTRACT
Through a study of the life, the writings and the poetic performances of the Chinese dissident Liao Yiwu (b. 1958), who has been living as a refugee in Germany since July 2011, this chapter aims to define “maverick cosmopolitanism,” the position in the world, the poetics and modes of action of intellectual exiles who haven’t lost a vivid concern for the people and the culture of their countries of origin while making every effort to disseminate a pan-human message of justice and freedom. The mediation of “fields of belonging” through the exigencies of conflict and/or dispossession appears to inform Liao’s hard-hitting and no-holds-barred writing- and speaking-styles, especially his speeches and other public performances, almost always accompanied by a flute-recital by Liao himself. “Maverick cosmopolitanism” seeks to encapsulate the intensely transcultural intellectual enthusiasm and cultivation of individuals who effectively and often with apparent ease (seek to) transcend intercultural differences and historicized barriers of taste and predilection. Voicing poetically the plea of minorities of all sorts and the oppressed subalterns in the PRC and elsewhere makes Liao’s be/longing different, for instance, from Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s traditionalist vision of Russia and his land of exile in the “free world.”
