Above the main entrance of Westminster Abbey, carved in French Richemont limestone, ten life-size sculptures of twentieth-century martyrs peer into the distance. Martin Luther King is shown with outstretched arms in a welcoming and protective gesture, an infant huddled at his feet; but how many visitors would recognise Wang Zhiming, a Protestant minister executed in 1973 during the Cultural Revolution?

Liao Yiwu first heard of Wang when wandering through some of the most inaccessible villages in the hills of Yunnan, China’s southwestern province. A fearless critic of the communist regime and indefatigable collector of the life stories of the downtrodden, Liao is the author of The Corpse Walker, translated into