Taiwan
Last updated: January 17, 2024
We spoke to British-Canadian-Taiwanese author Jessica J. Lee, author of Two Trees Make a Forest, about fresh voices in nature writing.
For children's books, we recommend Grandma Lives in a Perfume Village by prolific Taiwanese author Fang Suzhen.
“It makes the case for appreciating Taiwanese food as something that can’t be thought of as a subset or distillation of Chinese food. It is a cuisine in which some dishes are heavily influenced by versions that existed in China, but for centuries Taiwan has had a separate historical trajectory, which has sometimes been tightly connected and sometimes at most only loosely connected to the Chinese mainland. It has been influenced by indigenous traditions and by other parts of the world, especially Japan, and includes versions of ingredients that aren’t found on the mainland…Wei clearly has an interest in thinking about this as a story not only about food, but also as a gateway into thinking differently about Taiwan – not thinking of it as a place temporarily separated from China, but as a place with its own history going back for centuries and which has also been a self-ruled country since the late 1940s.” Read more...
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Historian
“Richard Madsen is one of the pioneers of Chinese religious study in the West. He has looked at many different practices, and written a lot about Catholicism, but in this book he looks at Taiwan’s political democratisation in the 80s. He shows that Buddhist groups like Fo Guang Shan, Tzu Chi and Dharma Drum Mountain were all part of a rise of civil society – somewhat similar to the Catholic Church in Poland during the Cold War, helping to undermine authoritarian control, but indirectly. There wasn’t a figurehead like Pope John Paul II, but they did help to pluralise society, and to spread ideas of equality. When I was in Taiwan in the 80s and 90s, people were starting to complain that the government shouldn’t be able to park their cars illegally, or to embezzle money. Some people in China think that, but they don’t speak out as openly about it as people in Taiwan did.” Read more...
“This is a book that I’ve gone back to again and again over the years. Charles Stafford is trying to give you a sense of the ordinary, everyday processes of learning in a fishing village in Taiwan, so at a very localized level. The everyday practices are very focused on building a sense of filial responsibility and duty towards your family, about reciprocal roles and obligations. That’s how you become a moral person. It’s not done through explicit teaching, it’s done through ‘ostensive learning.’ Cultural acquisition through everyday interactions is key. As a route to adulthood, he contrasts that ordinary knowledge with the explicit knowledge that’s taught, in a much more organized fashion, in school contexts — where they’re trying to teach children to be a part of a nation.” Read more...
Jo Boyden, Development & Aid Workers (see also Economists)
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1
Taipei People
by Pai Hsien-yung -
2
Bamboo Shoots After the Rain: Contemporary Stories by Women Writers of Taiwan
by Ann Carver (editor) & Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang (editor) -
3
Exiles at Home: Stories
by Ch'en Ying-chen -
4
The Taste of Apples
by Huang Chun-ming -
5
Angelwings: Contemporary Queer Fiction from Taiwan
by Fran Martin (translator)
Short Stories from Taiwan, recommended by Sabina Knight
Short Stories from Taiwan, recommended by Sabina Knight
With careful literary crafting, Taiwan’s writers have told the complex story of their country since World War II. Sabina Knight, a professor at Smith College and author of Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction, recommends five of her favourite short story collections.
