​When We Are Bold

Madeleine Thien is the author of three novels and one short-story collection. Her 2016 novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, and the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. This novel examines the legacy of the decade-long Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations through the multi-generational story of a family of classically-trained musicians.

Ding Zilin: The Right to Grieve by Madeleine Thien in When We Are Bold: Women Who Turn Our Upsidedown World Right

A professor of philosophy and aesthetics, Ding Zilin founded the organization Tiananmen Mothers after her 17-year-old son was shot by government troops—alongside an unknown number of others—during peaceful democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Tiananmen Mothers is comprised of relations of those killed on the night of June 3 and in the early morning of June 4, 1989, and seeks truth and accountability from the Chinese government for the massacre.