Much has been written about the Tiananmen Square protests, but very little exists in the words of those who were actually there. For over seven years, Liao Yiwu-a master of contemporary Chinese literature, imprisoned and persecuted as a counter-revolutionary until he fled the country in 2011-secretly interviewed survivors of the devastating 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Tortured, imprisoned, and forced into silence and the margins of Chinese society for thirty years, their harrowing and unforgettable stories are now finally revealed.

When journalist Liao Yiwu first stumbled upon a vibrant Christian community in the officially secular China, he knew little about Christianity. In fact, he'd been taught that religion was evil, and that those who believed in it were deluded, cultists, or imperialist spies. But as a writer whose work has been banned in China and has even landed him in jail, Liao felt a kinship with Chinese Christians in their unwavering commitment to the freedom of expression and to finding meaning in a tumultuous society.

Unwilling to let his nation lose memory of its past or deny its present, Liao set out to document the untold stories of brave believers whose totalitarian government could not break their faith in God, including:

The over-100-year-old nun who persevered in spite of beatings, famine, and decades of physical labor, and still fights for the rightful return of church land seized by the government

The surgeon who gave up a lucrative Communist hospital administrator position to treat villagers for free in the remote, mountainous regions of southwestern China

The Protestant minister, now memorialized in London's Westminster Abbey, who was executed during the Cultural Revolution as "an incorrigible counterrevolutionary"

This ultimately triumphant tale of a vibrant church thriving against all odds serves as both a powerful conversation about politics and spirituality and a moving tribute to China's valiant shepherds of faith, who prove that a totalitarian government cannot control what is in people's hearts.

The Corpse Walker introduces us to regular men and women at the bottom of Chinese society, most of whom have been battered by life but have managed to retain their dignity: a professional mourner, a human trafficker, a public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, and a Falung Gong practitioner, among others. By asking challenging questions with respect and empathy, Liao Yiwu managed to get his subjects to talk openly and sometimes hilariously about their lives, desires, and vulnerabilities, creating a book that is an instance par excellence of what was once upon a time called "The New Journalism." The Corpse Walker reveals a fascinating aspect of modern China, describing the lives of normal Chinese citizens in ways that constantly provoke and surprise.

A masterful ensemble of journalistic narrations that takes readers into the heart of China, this collection of moving and piercing interviews of marginalized individuals inserts readers into the convulsive and terrible recent history of a country within which communism and economic development have coexisted alongside the realities of starvation and cannibalism, of torture and political control, and of violence and injustice. At the same time, the book leads readers through mesmerizing ancestral traditions and beliefs, providing a perspective of the Chinese reality that is completely different from the one that tends to circulate within Western media. One of the traditions depicted is that of the corpse walkers: people who are hired to transport those who died far from their places of origin back to their homes so their souls can find peace, a process carried out with mysterious and mythical processions in which the corpse is treated as if it were still alive. "Un magistral conjunto de relatos periodisticos que lleva al lector al corazon de la China, esta coleccion de estremecedoras y punzantes entrevistas a personajes marginales adentra al lector en la convulsa y terrible historia reciente de un pais en el que el comunismo y el desarrollo economico han convivido con realidades de hambruna y canibalismo, de tortura y control politico, y de violencia e injusticia. Al mismo tiempo, el libro transporta al lector por las encantadoras tradiciones y creencias ancestrales, proveyendole una perspectiva de la realidad china completamente diferente a la que suele circular en los medios occidentales. Una de las costumbres descritas es la de los paseantes de cadaveres: personas que se contratan para transportar hasta su hogar a aquellos que fallecieron fuera de su lugar de origen para que su alma pueda encontrar el descanso eterno, cuestion que llevan a cabo con misteriosas y misticas procesiones en las que el cadaver es tratado como si estuviera vivo. "