“I'm a traveller. I don't have a sense of belonging”

As he releases his memoir, Ai Weiwei speaks to Rory Sullivan about burning his first copy, remembering his father and what living in the US taught him.

- Rory Sullivan

Flames dance around the corners of a book above a rectangle of grass. The title can still be made out but will soon disappear — 1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, a memoir by the celebrated Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei. Its pages crackle in the heat and turn to ash.

Book burnings are usually associated with censorship, fuelled by paranoia and rage, but as the author lights the fire, before standing back to watch the spectacle with his 12-yearold son Lao, this takes on a different flavour.

For those familiar with Ai, the recording he shows me on his phone may not be altogether surprising. In his own words, he is “a born contrarian”, a description borne out by one of his early works in which he deliberately drops a Han dynasty urn as a challenge to people’s notions of value.

However, his most recent act of destruction is less a public statement and more a deeply personal act, something closely entwined with his childhood.

“Just yesterday, when I received my first book, I did a little performance with my son,” Ai tells me over green tea in the wood-panelled corner of an upmarket hotel in central London, his face beaming with pride. The burning, an intimate family moment, recalled a similar event that took place more than half a century ago in China, where Ai was then living with his father, the distinguished poet Ai Qing.

“I burnt books with my father for different reasons,” the now 64-year-old says in a soft voice.