Su Xiaokang

[8] On May 19, Su and other intellectuals signed a petition demanding democracy in China: We, as intellectuals, in the name of our personal integrity and all our moral rectitude, with our body and mind, with all our dignity as individuals, solemnly swear never to retreat in the quest for democracy pioneered by the students with their blood and lives, never under any pretext to disengage ourselves because of cowardice, never to allow again the humiliations of the past, never to sell out our moral integrity, never to submit ourselves to dictatorship, never to pledge allegiance to the last emperors of the China of the 80's.

[5] His books were banned from sale and publication immediately after the crackdown,[10] River Elegy was denounced officially by the Communist Party, proclaiming it was counter-revolutionary.

[11] After the crackdown on June 4, the Chinese Communist Party accused Su Xiaokang as one of the "blackhands" behind the protest,[12] subsequently charging him with the crime of "inciting counter-revolutionary propaganda";[13] his exile began in an effort to escape the arrest warrant.

[17] After A Memoir of Misfortune, Su wrote another book, The Loneliness of Delaware Bay, telling of the struggles and the challenges he faced since moving to the United States.

[13] In 2013, Su published The Era of Slaying the Dragon, tackling subjects from Mao's Great Leap Forward and other atrocities occurring under the Chinese Communist Party's rule.