Dissident Chinese Poet, Liu Xiaobo Supporter Dies in Hong Kong

Dissident Chinese poet Meng Lang, a founder member of the writers’ group Independent Chinese PEN, has died in Hong Kong after a battle against cancer. He was 57.

Meng, a long-term and outspoken supporter of late political prisoner and 2010 Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, died in spite of a fund-raising campaign for medical treatment to target tumors that had spread to his brain.

Meng was hospitalized in Hong Kong during a trip during which he planned to launch a commemorative poetry collection for Liu Xiaobo, who died of late-stage liver cancer under police custody in July 2017.

But he was rushed to hospital in Hong Kong before the book launch with cerebral edema, the city's South China Morning Post newspaper reported at the time.

In 2014, Meng had also published a poetry collection commemorating the Chinese student-led democracy movement of 1989, which ended with a military crackdown by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) on the night of June 3, and in the days that followed.

He had also managed an Archive of Chinese Underground Literature and Exile Literature after moving to the democratic island of Taiwan.

According to Taiwan poet Hung Hung, Meng always felt he was in exile after moving to Taiwan and Hong Kong to live with his Taiwan-born wife, Tu Chia-chi.

"He would say that it's hard for trees to uproot and move somewhere else, and that he was forced into exile as a Chinese," Hung Hung said. "This exile was thrust upon him, and it was particularly hard for him."

"His last poem, about a fallen leaf finally blowing back home, is very beautiful and moving," Hung said. "I think now he has passed away, the fallen leaf has finally returned home."