"I was born in 1989, and my father, being a democracy activist, he was paying a lot of attention to what was going on in Tiananmen, in Beijing, at th… - Ti-Anna Wang

The conversations about human rights in China, they can be a little numbingly familiar after you talk about it.

The truth is, the lives of activists are much more complicated than what the novel presented. My father was not a regular man nor a regular father. He gave himself to his cause, and our relationship was forged by distance. There is no resentment. The world needs people like my father.

In a country without meaningful rule of law, my family has no means appeal my father's conviction, despite having secured exonerating evidence for the charges against him. The lawyers we've retained on his behalf are routinely intimidated by authorities, obstructed from visiting him and threatened with disbarment. Because of my outspokenness, the Chinese government repeatedly refuses my visa applications. Consequently I have been unable to visit him for the past seven years.