Yang Jisheng - a retired journalist from the China's official news agency Xinhua and author of the groundbreaking, critically-acclaimed book "Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962" - has been prevented by his old employer from traveling to the United States to receive an award, according to the Guardian.
Yang had been chosen as the recipient of Harvard University's Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism last December as a way to honor him for his fearless reporting and pursuit of the facts about what many call China's hidden holocaust.
"Tombstone" is a massive piece of literature, composed of about 1,200 pages worth of documents which paint a very grim picture of China during the 1958-1961 famine, which Yang said claimed at least 36 million lives, including that of his own father, reported International Business Times.
Though the book has never been released in China, it was nonetheless lauded by the international community for its relentless and uncompromising stance on what actually happened during those fateful years in China's history.
Yang had been allowed to travel to other countries to receive an award before, such as back in November when he received the Stieg Larsson Award in Sweden. This time around, however, it seems like Xinhua News Agency has prohibited the prolific author to travel to the United States to accept his award.
China's Communist Party has been quite strict about things that might damage its image, and works such as Yang's are considered highly dangerous.
