Huang Xiang is part of the City of Asylum project. 24 cities have agreed to take in literary political refugees
A writer cannot live on words alone, of course. He needs a place to write, a house to shelter him and food to sustain him. Reese and Samuels provided the house — two doors down from their own — as well as living expenses, garnered through an “all-volunteer” fund-raising effort. Their devotion to the project was what convinced the NANCA coordinators that Pittsburgh should be a part of the City of Asylum network.
As Ralston said, success requires “a situation like you have in Pittsburgh, where there is a small group of very committed activists who take charge.”
Huang and his wife first visited Pittsburgh in July. When they saw the bluffs on Mount Washington, Huang proclaimed that he would carve the rock into a Rushmore-like poem as a gift to the city. Zhang convinced him to leave his mark on the house instead, so he painted his poetry — in sweeping Chinese characters — onto the exterior.