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Unsinkable – Four Short Stories from Four Taiwanese Writers

Industry: Books

Lady Wasi, Have A Bite of Ghost, ABC:Doggie Bites Piggy, Nomad — The first collection in English of the four most acclaimed and award-winning Taiwanese writers

Taipei (PRUnderground) June 22nd, 2020

The tumultuous recent history of Taiwan surprisingly gave the islands unusually diverse cultures. Unsinkable—Four Short Stories from Four Taiwanese Writers are the stories of ordinary people who refuse to succumb to hardship or inequality. People immigrated to Taiwan for all kinds of reasons, from missionaries sent to pass on their gospels, businessmen developing new markets, workers seeking bigger money, to refugees running from wars or dissidents looking for asylum. Thus memories of the lost past are a motif of Taiwanese literature and a powerful approach for writers to deal with issues inconvenient to confront face to face. These issues include regime transfer, political oppression, faiths, sexuality, family values, urbanization, fantasies, misunderstanding, cultural clashes and discrimination.

Colonialism and poverty are still living experiences and simultaneously memories to many Taiwanese. In literary works, the (dis)continuation of tradition and values are the ever present focus. In these four stories, the authors have successfully woven layers of messages through intriguing plots, characters and metaphors. With extraordinary artistry, they (re)present elaborate human natures.

These are the stories of ordinary people who refuse to succumb to hardship or inequality. They are unsinkable Taiwanese.

Bios of these four writers:

Walis Nokan is an Atayal writer whose literary writing sharply points out the deprived and dispossessed status of indigenous peoples in Taiwan, as well as the injustice indigenous peoples all over the world are facing throughout their history. Nourished by his indigenous inheritance, Walis established an unparalleled career in the Taiwanese literary scene. He has published numerous reportage, fiction and poetry, and has received many prominent literary awards.

Gan Yao-Ming majored Chinese literature at Tunghai University and earned a master’s degree in Creative Writing from the National Dong Hwa University. Before becoming a full-time fiction writer, Gan had worked as a reporter, a middle school teacher, and a playwright of a small theater, he has created a genre of fiction that made his achievement incomparable among his fellow writers. Widely recognized as one of the best authors of his generation, Gan Yao-Ming has received various literary awards.

Lin Chun-Ying‘s literary works are credited and loved by his readers because of the extraordinary beauty contained in his words.  In 1991 he published his first collection of short stories, The Longest Summer, which immediately built his name in the Taiwanese literary scene. In addition to issues regarding the history and urban/rural lives in Taiwan, Lin experiments with his mother tongue—the Taiwanese dialect that has been repressed and forgotten. He is also a frequent winner of literature awards.

Luo Yi-Chun is one of the most praised Taiwanese writers. His works include novels, short stories, essays, and poetry. Luo Yi-Chun is the recipient of numerous awards and in 2008 he was one of the writers-in-residence for the International Writing Program hosted by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. A prolific writer; Luo Yi-Chun’s latest anthologies of essays Innocent Worries and Cab Drivers were published in 2018, and the Ming Dynasty in 2019.

Authors: Walis Nokan, Lin Chun-Ying, Luo Yi-Chun, Gan Yao-Ming

Publisher: Serenity International Publishing

Translators: Richard R. B. Chen, C.J. Anderson-Wu

Editor: Steven M. Anderson

Designer: Chung Ya-Yun

ISBN: 9789869639330

Distributor: Itasca Books

Publishing Date: June 2020

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