Literature and Poetry

Review: Ká-sióng, A Collection of Taiwanese Short Fiction

Maya Rubin
Literary translation is having a moment, particularly in Taiwan. You might have seen the recent, glowing New York Times profile of Tilted Axis, a British publisher specializing in translated literature, or witnessed the frenzy over Lin King and Yang Shuang-zi (楊双子)’s National Book Award win for King’s brilliant translation of Taiwan Travelogue. Riding that wave is Ká-sióng (the Taiwanese Hokkien romanization of 假想), a collection of five newly translated Taiwanese short stories recently published by Strangers Press in partnership with the Taiwan Ministry of Culture, National Museum of Taiwan Literature, and Books from Taiwan. The stories in Ká-sióng, each of which has a different author and translator, are almost dizzyingly diverse, from body horror in an Indigenous Atayal village to sci-fi memory manipulation in a futuristic, flooded Taipei. The stories–which are presented in arbitrary sequence–offer a polyphonic, cacophonous vision of Taiwanese fiction and culture...
April 2025Arts and CultureEnglishLiterature and Poetry14 min read

Philosophy Against Nuclear Power

Shen Yun-Yen
The nuclear bomb certainly posed a serious problem for contemporary philosophy. From Heidegger to Arendt to Marcuse, philosophy in the mid-20th century struggled to deal with this all-annihilating artificial production. Unfortunately, most of these philosophers did not analyze the complex relationships between nuclear technology, capital, state, etc. They did not even attempt to analyze the history or the ABCs of this technology. Hence while they criticized the “atomization” of contemporary society, they did not even notice that the contemporary world is one in which the atom is no longer truly an “atom,” that is, something that cannot be split. What’s worse, philosophy seemed to be totally incapable of dealing with nuclear power. It’s simply beyond the limits of both reason and imagination...
Arts and CultureDecember 2024EnglishLiterature and PoetrySelf-DeterminationSocial MovementsYouth Movements15 min read

Li Kotomi Comes Out as Transgender After Being Outed by Taiwan’s Anti-Gender Movement

Yo-Ling Chen
Yesterday evening on Transgender Day of Remembrance, critically acclaimed Taiwanese fiction writer Li Kotomi reluctantly issued a public statement disclosing her transgender status after years of being outed, harassed, and doxxed online by anti-gender accounts in Taiwan. Shortly after, Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association issued a statement in support of Li. In addition to her personal TDOR statement, Li also co-organized a “Statement by Authors in Japan Opposing LGBTQ+ Discrimination,” which was signed by 51 novelists in Japan and was released earlier in the day. Li’s public response to her outing comes in the wake of yet another surge in anti-gender discourse online and draws attention to the increasingly transnational character of anti-gender mobilizations in Taiwan...
Arts and CultureEnglishGender/SexualityLiterature and PoetryNovember 2024Social Movements12 min read

Calling For a Return to Sinocentrism in the Name of Opposing It: Responding to ‘Reconsidering Sinophone Studies’

Brian Hioe
The International Journal of Taiwan Studies, one of the flagship journals of the discipline, published an unusual piece several months ago by Flair Donglai Shi. Though framed as an attack on Shih Shu-mei’s concept of the Sinophone, the crux of the piece’s argument is effectively that Taiwan studies is insufficiently Sinocentric...
Arts and CultureEnglishJuly 2021Literature and Poetry8 min read

革命不是事件，是日常：《香港的第三條道路：莫昭如的安那其民眾戲劇》

陳黃金菊
依照傳統意義來說，第三條道路（又稱新中間路線）專指有別於左、右派的社會民主論；稍稍不同的，可能是德國的小眾新納粹政黨「第三條道路」（Der Dritte Weg）。但是，要說前身為「無政府主義」的「安那其」是超脫左、右派的第三條路，這可就耐人尋味了。當然，這就如楊慧儀所寫的，得放回香港的脈絡來看。...
Arts and CultureJune 2020Literature and Poetry中文1 min read

專業譯者的養成：談談《卡卡女性主義》的翻譯策略

陳黃金菊
大部分願意在台港譯介專業人文社科的譯者和出版社，都算是佛心。第一，跟《心靈雞湯》或《有錢人跟你想的不一樣》比起來，這類書的銷量不會太好。大多數人渴望物質層面的成功，但這些書通常都在跟讀者說，「成功」邏輯背後的瑕疵在哪；第二，因為銷量不佳，願意出版的出版社絕對不是抱持什麼樂觀的心情，而是他們覺得有某種必要、甚至是迫切的需求要讓更多人接觸到這些書；最重要的是，要去哪找合適的譯者？...
Arts and CultureJune 2020Literature and Poetry中文3 min read