Ai Weiwei — a renowned artist and activist — tells a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own extraordinary life and the legacy of his father, Ai Qing, the nation’s most celebrated poet.

A Thousand Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir written by Ai Weiwei is one of the most anticipated books of the century and was published on November 2, 2021. A Thousand Years of Joys and Sorrows is being translated into thirteen languages with rights already placed in fifteen markets. The book has been published in hardcover and digital formats by Crown, and an audio edition will be simultaneously released by Penguin Random House Audio. World rights were acquired by Crown from Peter Bernstein and Amy Bernstein of Bernstein Literary Agency.

Book Reviews

New York Times, For His Father and His Son, Ai Weiwei Is Determined to Leave a Trace
Dedicated to his parents and to his young son, the artist’s first memoir traces his life as a political dissident in China back to the story of his father, Ai Qing, a poet exiled during Mao’s murderous purge of intellectuals. “Ai claims that unlike his father, ‘I lacked that ability to harness the power of words’; but this isn’t true,” Jiayang Fan writes in her review. “He is most eloquent when he stops pontificating on art and surrenders, almost despite himself, to the act of remembering. … Remembering, too, is a form of resistance. In documenting the past, he is also repudiating the country’s generations of imposed amnesia.”