About the Author

Yang Jisheng was born in 1940, joined the Communist Party in 1964, and worked for the Xinhua News Agency from January 1968 until his retirement in 2001. As of 2008, he was deputy editor at Yanhuang Chunqiu (Chronicles of History), an official journal that regularly skirts censorship with articles on controversial political topics.

"Human memory is the ladder on which a country and a people advance. . .The authorities in a totalitarian system strive to conceal their faults and extol their merits, gloss over their errors and forcibly eradicate all memory of man-made calamity, darkness, and evil. . .I erect this tombstone so that people will remember and henceforth renounce manmade calamity, darkness, and evil." – Yang Jisheng