Böcker i Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan-serien

First published in Taiwan in 1995, The Membranes is a classic of queer speculative fiction in Chinese. Chi Ta-wei weaves dystopian tropes-heirloom animals, radiation-proof combat drones, sinister surveillance technologies-into a sensitive portrait of one young woman's quest for self-understanding.

A Novel.

My South Seas Sleeping Beauty is a captivating coming-of-age tale set in the magical jungles of Borneo. Told through the vivid recollections of a Chinese-Malay youth, the novel recounts the life of Su Qi, a troubled, sensitive son of a wealthy family, and exemplifies the imaginative range of one of Taiwan's most innovative writers. "e;There were all sorts of stories about how my younger sister died,"e; Su Qi begins, hinting at the power of memory to bend and refract truth. Yet whichever the real story may be, the fact is that the death of Su Qi's sister created an irrevocable rift in Su Qi's family, driving his father into the arms of aboriginal women and his mother into a world of her own invention. In an effort to escape the oppression of home, Su Qi loses himself in the surrounding jungle, full of Communist guerillas and strange tropical fauna. The jungle further blurs the line between fantasy and reality for Su Qi, until he meets Chunxi, the beautiful, frail daughter of his father's best friend. Chunxi is an oasis of kindness and honesty in an otherwise cruel and evasive world, but after a bizarre accident, Chunxi falls into a deep coma, and Su Qui flees to Taiwan. In college Su Qi meets Keyi, a vivacious siren who helps Su Qi forget not only his violent past but also the colorful tales of his youth. When a family member dies, however, Su Qi is pulled back to the jungles of Borneo where he begins to unravel the secrets of his family's past-a story stranger than any fairy tale-and learns that his cherished dream of awakening his beloved Chunxi may be more than just a fantasy. Influenced by the lyricism of William Faulkner and the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, My South Seas Sleeping Beauty is a deeply evocative exploration of sexuality and identity and a masterful reworking of Chinese and Western myth. Valerie Jaffee's careful translation retains all the tone and detail of the original work and provides rare access to a new and exciting generation of Chinese writers born in Southeast Asia.

Chu T'ien-hsin's The Old Capital is a brilliant evocation of Taiwan's literature of nostalgia and remembrance. The novel is centered on the question, "e;Is it possible that none of your memories count?"e; and explores the reliability of remembrances and the thin line that separates fact from fantasy.Comprised of four thematically linked stories and a novella, The Old Capital focuses on the cultural and psychological realities of contemporary Taiwan. The stories are narrated by individuals who share an aching nostalgia for a time long past. Strolling through modern Taipei, they return to the lost, imperfect memories called forth by the smells and sensations of their city, and try to reconcile themselves to their rapidly changing world. The novella is built on the memories and recollections of a woman trying to make sense of herself and her homeland. After a trip to Kyoto to meet with a friend, she returns to Taipei, where, having been mistaken for a Japanese tourist, she revisits the sites of her youth using a Japanese colonial map of the city. Seeing Taipei anew, the narrator confronts the complex nature of her identity, embodied in the contrast between a serene and preserved Kyoto and a thoroughly modernized and chaotic Taipei. The growing angst of these narrators reflects a deeper anxiety over the legacy of Japan and America in Taiwan. The titles of the stories themselves-"e;Death in Venice,"e; "e;Man of La Mancha,"e; "e;Breakfast at Tiffany's,"e; "e;Hungarian Water"e;-reveal the strong currents of influence that run throughout the collection and shape the content and texture of the writing. In his meticulous translation, Howard Goldblatt captures the casual, intimate feel of Chu T'ien-hsin's writing while also maintaining its multiple layers of meaning. An intertextual masterpiece, The Old Capital is a moving and highly sensual meditation on the elasticity of memory and its power to shape personal identity.

From its beginnings as a pestilent port and colonial backwater, Hong Kong became the "e;pearl"e; of a declining British empire, and then ascended to its present status as a gleaming city of commerce. Throughout its history, Hong Kong has been steeped in drama, intrigue, and seismic social shifts. Shih Shu-ching, an acclaimed Taiwanese writer, sets her epic tale of one beautiful and determined woman's family amid this rich and colorful history, capturing in vivid, panoramic detail the unique tensions and atmosphere that characterize the city. Critically praised and long popular in the Chinese-speaking world, City of the Queen is now available for the first time in English.After being kidnapped from her home in rural China, Huang, the novel's heroine, is brought to Hong Kong and sold into prostitution. Thanks to her shrewd, sometimes devious business dealings and unexpected twists of fate, she emerges from these cruel beginnings to become a wealthy landowner. City of the Queen follows the fortunes of Huang's family, including those of her devoutly Christian daughter-in-law, who tries to redeem the sins she believes Huang has committed; her grandson, who becomes the first Chinese judge on the Hong Kong Supreme Court; and her great-granddaughter, a quintessential Hong Kong young woman, who turns her back on family tradition to revel in the pleasures offered by the 1970s and 1980s metropolis.The novel introduces a range of other Chinese and British characters, examining the complicated relationships between colonizer and colonized in a searing and perceptive portrayal of colonialism. There is Adam Smith, the British officer who struggles with the competing seductions of Huang's beauty and British respectability; Qu Yabing, Smith's servant, who despises anything Chinese, yet becomes Huang's lover after she is abandoned by Smith; Colonel White, the sadistic colonial police chief; and Auntie Eleven, a concubine who owns a pawnshop and teaches Huang the secrets of the trade.

Taiwan's most innovative science fiction writer presents three tales of intrigue, espionage, betrayal, political strife, time travel, and Chinese history and mysticism. After thousands of years of civil unrest and countless wars, the weary Huhui people of Sunlon City have once again succumbed to a ruthless and overpowering enemy. In Five Jade Disks, the first book in the trilogy, the imperialistic Shan have enslaved the inhabitants of Sunlon City and imposed a harsh martial order. As the Shan fight to retain control of the restless Huhui natives, an unstable rebel alliance prepares to win back its homeland. Amidst the confusion of revolt, Miss Qi, a determined young girl, emerges as an unlikely leader. With the help of her friends and the loyal Green Snake Brotherhood, Miss Qi discovers that an ancient cult and its insidious and unusually powerful leader may hold the key to the rebels' victory-or may yet be the cause of their undoing. As she rushes to put the pieces together, the rebels, divided by internal factions, strive to band together in a heroic attempt to overthrow the Shan. The story continues in Defenders of the Dragon City. The Shan have been defeated, but the victory celebrations of the Huhui are quickly brought to an end. After deserting Sunlon City, the Shan regroup and return for one final and bitter attempt to destroy the weakened rebel forces. During their exile, the Shan turn their aggressions against the indigenous races of the Huhui planet, a colorful mix of peaceful tribes resembling serpents, eagles, and leopards. Forced into the war to save their remaining territory, the indigenous peoples join the Huhui in their continuing struggle against the Shan.The third novel, Tale of a Feather, opens with images of chaos and devastation. The conflict with the Shan has left the city in flames, and refugees are fleeing in droves through the main gates. Taking advantage of the turmoil, a ruthless dictator assumes control of the weak interim government and begins a treacherous campaign to eliminate his adversaries. In this volatile atmosphere, Miss Qi continues her desperate search to discover the origin of the mysterious Bronze Statue Cult and come to terms with the dark power it wields over her people.The trilogy, first published in Taiwan in the late 1980s and early 1990s and widely considered to be a modern classic, is now presented for the first time in English and in a single volume. In these allegorical tales, Chang confronts some of the most serious and divisive issues of our time, including the burden of history and the ravages of oppression, racism, and ethnic displacement.

In this lively translation of Wang Chen-ho's ribald satire, a Taiwanese village loses all perspective -- and common sense -- at the prospect of fleecing a shipload of lusty and lonely American soldiers. This irreverent novel by one of Taiwan's best-known writers is both a masterpiece of fiction and a vivid reflection of Taiwanese identity and the impact of Western culture.

Yang Mu is a towering figure in modern Chinese poetry. Hawk of the Mind is a comprehensive collection of Yang Mu's poetry that presents crucial works from the many stages of his long creative career, rendered into English by a team of distinguished translators, illustrating the distinctive style and affective power of a great poet.

In 1930, the Japanese colonial regime brought a Taiwanese tribe to the brink of genocide. Wu He investigates the atrocity in this milestone of Chinese experimental literature. Shifting among observation, philosophical musings, and fantastical leaps of imagination, Remains of Life is a powerful literary reckoning with Taiwan's colonial history.

Billed as "a Taiwanese 'Gone With the Wind'", this story spans more than half a century of Taiwan's history, tracing the fortunes of the Pengs, a family of Hakka Chinese settlers, across three generations from the 1890s, just before Taiwan was ceded to Japan, to World War II.

These two searingly funny and unsettling portraits of teenagers beyond the control and largely beneath the notice of adults in 1980s Taiwan are the first English translations of works by Taiwan's most famous and best-selling literary cult figure.

At once a bittersweet romance and a vividly detailed portrait of life in a southern Taiwanese coastal town in the 1970s, this prize-winning Taiwanese bestseller about love, betrayal, family life, and the power of tradition captures the intimacy of agricultural life in the midst of an increasingly industrialized society.

This postmodern, first-person tale of a contemporary Taiwanese gay man reflecting on his life, loves, and intellectual influences is among the most important novels to emerge from Taiwan in recent memory.

These twelve stories represent the best work of respected "nativist" writer Cheng Ch'ing-wen and encompass his major themes: the tensions between men and women, parents and children, city and village, tradition and modernity.

Reimagines the lives of a legendary couple - Sun Yat-sen, known as the "Father of the Chinese Revolution," and his wife, Song Qingling. This novel touches on Sun Yat-sen's tormented political life and Song Qingling's rumored affairs and isolation after her husband's death.

"e;Dream and Swine and Aurora,"e; "e;Deep in the Rubber Forest,"e; "e;Fish Bones,"e; "e;Allah's Will,"e; "e;Monkey Butts, Fire, and Dangerous Things"e;-Ng Kim Chew's stories are raw, rural, and rich with the traditions of his native Malaysia. They are also full of humor and spirit, demonstrating a deep appreciation for human ingenuity in the face of poverty, oppression, and exile. Ng creatively captures the riot of cultures that roughly coexist on the Malay Peninsula and its surrounding archipelago. Their interplay is heightened by the encroaching forces of globalization, which bring new opportunities for cultural experimentation, but also an added dimension of alienation. In prose that is intimate and atmospheric, these sensitively crafted, resonant stories depict the struggles of individuals torn between their ancestral and adoptive homes, communities pressured by violence, and minority Malaysian Chinese in dynamic tension with the Islamic Malay majority. Told through relatable characters, Ng's tales show why he has become a leading Malaysian writer of Chinese fiction, representing in mood, voice, and rhythm the dislocation of a people and a country in transition.

Hualien, on the Pacific coast of eastern Taiwan, and its mountains, especially Mount Qilai, were deeply inspirational for the young poet Yang Mu. A place of immense natural beauty and cultural heterogeneity, the city was also a site of extensive social, political, and cultural change in the twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and the American bombings of World War II to the Chinese civil war, the White Terror, and the Cold War.Taken as a whole, these evocative and allusive autobiographical essays provide a personal response to history as Taiwan transitioned from a Japanese colony to the Republic of China. Yang Mu recounts his childhood experiences under the Japanese, life in the mountains in proximity to indigenous people as his family took refuge from the American bombings, his initial encounters and cultural conflicts with Nationalist soldiers recently arrived from mainland China, the subsequent activities of the Nationalist government to consolidate power, and the island's burgeoning new manufacturing society. Nevertheless, throughout those early years, Yang Mu remained anchored by a sense of place on Taiwan's eastern coast and amid its coastal mountains, over which stands Mount Qilai like a guardian spirit. This was the formative milieu of the young poet. Yang Mu seized on verse to develop a distinct persona and draw meaning from the currents of change reshuffling his world. These eloquent essays create an exciting, subjective realm meant to transcend the personal and historical limitations of the individual and the end of culture, "e;plundered and polluted by politics and industry long ago."e;

Though he lived most of his life in rural South Taiwan, Zhong Lihe spent several years in Manchuria and Peking, moving among an eclectic mix of ethnicities, social classes, and cultures. His fictional portraits unfold on Japanese battlefields and in Peking slums, as well as in the remote, impoverished hill-country villages and farms of his native Hakka districts. His scenic descriptions are deft and atmospheric, and his psychological explorations are acute. The first anthology to present his work in English, this volume features two novellas, ten short stories, and four short prose works.

Huang Fan burst onto Taiwan's literary scene in the 1980s, publishing pointed urban portraits and political satires that captured the reading public's attention. After decades of innovative work, he is now one of Asia's most celebrated authors, crucial to understanding the development of Taiwanese literature over the past fifty years.The first collection of Huang Fan's work to appear in English, this anthology includes Zero, a prize-winning dystopian novella echoing George Orwell's chilling 1984. Set in a postapocalyptic world, Zero features Xi De, a young man raised in an elite community who risks everything to challenge his society's charismatic leader and technocratic rule. Huang Fan's novella poignantly illustrates the quandary of an idealistic man trapped among conflicting claims to truth, unsure whether to think of himself as heroic or foolish in his ultimate choice of resistance and sacrifice.This anthology also features three critically acclaimed short stories: "e;Lai Suo,"e; which established Huang Fan's reputation as a groundbreaking author; "e;The Intelligent Man"e;; and "e;How to Measure the Width of a Ditch."e; In "e;Lai Suo,"e; a naive individual becomes the pawn of powerful men intent on political advancement. In "e;How to Measure the Width of a Ditch,"e; an unreliable narrator spins an absurdist, metafictional tale of his childhood in Taipei, and in "e;The Intelligent Man,"e; Huang Fan weaves an allegorical satire about political reunification set against a backdrop of Taiwanese migration to the United States, with a trenchant look at expanding business interests in mainland China and Southeast Asia. All together, these remarkable works portray the tensions and aspirations of modern Taiwan.

Containing translations of nearly 400 poems from 50 poets, this anthology reveals Taiwan's 20th-century transformation in a broad spectrum of themes, forms, and styles: from lyrical meditation to political satire, haiku to concrete poetry, surrealism to postmodernism. The in-depth introduction outlines the development of modern poetry in the unique historical and cultural context of Taiwan.

Containing translations of nearly 400 poems from 50 poets, this anthology reveals Taiwan's 20th-century transformation in a broad spectrum of themes, forms, and styles: from lyrical meditation to political satire, haiku to concrete poetry, surrealism to postmodernism. The in-depth introduction outlines the development of modern poetry in the unique historical and cultural context of Taiwan.

Born in Taiwan, raised in the scholarly traditions of ancient China but forced into the Japanese educational system, Hu Taiming, the protagonist of Orphan of Asia, ultimately finds himself estranged from all three cultures. This autobiographical novel is regarded as an expression of the postwar Taiwanese national consciousness.

Stories born of the trials and heartache of exile in Taiwan.

Provides a representative sampling of stories, essays, and poems from each of Taiwan's nine indigenous tribes. This book explores such themes as the decline of traditional ways of life in Taiwan's aboriginal communities, residual belief in ancestral spirits, assimilation into a society dominated by Han Chinese, and others.