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Eugene Perry Link, Jr. (; born 6 August, 1944 Gaffney, South Carolina) is Chancellorial Chair Professor for Innovative Teaching Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages in College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the
University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...
and
Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...
of East Asian Studies at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
. Link taught Chinese language and literature at Princeton University (1973-77 and 1989-2008) and
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
(1977-1988). He specializes in modern Chinese literature and Chinese language. Link is a
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
alumnus who received his B.A. in philosophy in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1976. Link has been a Board Member of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) since 2021. CFHK is a US-based non-profit organisation, which presses for the preservation of freedom, democracy, and international law in Hong Kong.


Tiananmen Square

Link helped Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi and Fang's wife obtain refuge at the U.S. Embassy following the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Fang remained at the embassy for a year until negotiations resulted in Fang's being allowed to leave and settle in the U.S. Link has translated many Chinese stories, writings and poems into English. Along with Andrew J. Nathan, he translated the '' Tiananmen Papers'', which detailed the governmental response to the 1989 democracy protests. In 1996, China blacklisted Link, and he has been denied entrance ever since. In 2001, Link was detained and questioned upon arriving in Hong Kong because of his involvement in the ''Tiananmen Papers''. After roughly one hour, he was allowed to enter Hong Kong, where he spoke at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club. He has been banned from the People's Republic of China since, however.


Controversy at U.C. Riverside

From 2022 to 2024, Link faced disciplinary action at U.C. Riverside after expressing concerns in a faculty search committee about prioritizing a Black candidate’s race over qualifications. Link was removed from the search committee and subjected to a disciplinary process, including hearings resembling a trial, where termination was suggested as a penalty. Link said his comments were intended to caution against elevating race as the “overriding criterion,” and that the comments were reported to the university without his knowledge. Although a faculty committee unanimously found that Link did not violate any conduct codes, UC Riverside chancellor Kim Wilcox issued Link a formal letter of censure. Link was recommended by the university to keep the process confidential and warned that the disclosure of any details of his disciplinary process “may result in discipline.” In December 2024, Link went public about his experience in an op-ed published in the
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
.


Selected publications


Books

*
Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities
' (University of California Press, 1981). *''Evening Chats in Beijing'' (W.W. Norton, 1994),

' (Princeton University Press, 2000). *''Banyang suibi'
半洋隨筆
(''Notes of a Semi-Foreigner''; in Chinese) (Taipei: Sanminchubanshe, 1999). * ''The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System.'' Princeton University Press, 2000). ISBN 0691227845. *
An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics
' (Harvard University Press, 2013). *
I Have No Enemies: The Life and Legacy of Liu Xiaobo
' with Wu Dazhi (Columbia University Press, 2023)


Articles and chapters

* * . Accessed 17 Dec. 2024.


Edited volumes

* ''Stubborn Weeds: Popular and Controversial Chinese Literature after the Cultural Revolution.'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Chinese Literature in Translation, 1983). ISBN 0253355125. * ''Roses and Thorns: The Second Blooming of the Hundred Flowers in Chinese Fiction, 1979-80''. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). ISBN 0520049799 * with Richard Madsen and Paul Pickowicz, ''Unofficial China : Popular Culture and Thought in the People's Republic.'' (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989). ISBN 0813309239. * with Liang Zhang, Andrew J. Nathan, ''The Tiananmen Papers.'' (New York: Public Affairs, 2001). ISBN 158648012X. *


Translations

* Charter 08 manifesto (January 2009). * Fang Lizhi, '' The Most Wanted Man In China: My Journey from Scientist to Enemy of the State'' (Henry Holt, 2015).. *
Liu Xiaobo Liu Xiaobo (; 28 December 1955 – 13 July 2017) was a Chinese literary criticism, literary critic, human rights activist, philosopher and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who called for political reforms and was involved in campaigns to end Ch ...
,
No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems
' (Harvard University Press, 2013).


Teaching material

* Chinese Primer. Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1994. Issued in
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
and GR editions. * ''Oh, China! Elementary Reader of Modern Chinese for Advanced Beginners'', Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1997.


References and further reading

*
Eugene P. Link Papers, 1907-1993
M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University at Albany, State University of New York


Notes


External links


Faculty page at UCRBiography at Princeton University

Rescuing Fang Lizhi and Questioning Memory — Perry Link on his June 4th Story

Peking Hotel
' 5 June 2024. Interview with Liu He. * Article in TIME magazine mentioning Link's detention in Hong Kong
Audio interview with Link on China's Charter '08Link author page and archive
from ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Link, Perry 1944 births Living people Harvard University alumni Princeton University faculty University of California, Riverside faculty American sinologists Chinese–English translators