SPOILER ALERT: Plot details of the novel Lily Narcissus are discussed in this interview. Jonathan Lerner lived in Taipei for two years in the late 1950s when his father, a foreign service officer, was stationed there. Later he was involved with the leftist Students for a Democratic Society, and then [...]
This engrossing novel of expat life in Taipei in the late 1950s is a story which stays with you. That’s due, in part, to the interesting, believable characters, but also because the ending leaves a few threads untied. The minor mystery of the “Narcissus” in the title is easily enough [...]
The plainspeople from China brought the legal notion of land title. Well, my father often jokes, “It used to be that if a Paiwan person had walked through a place leaving footprints with his own two feet enough times, that place belonged to him.” Precious little literature from Taiwan’s Indigenous [...]
............ John Groot is the author of Taiwanese Feet: My Walk Around Taiwan. Originally from Canada, since 2001 he has lived in Taiwan. To supplement his travel writing, he teaches English and international communication skills to computer industry workers. From his adopted hometown of Tamsui, New Taipei City, where he lives [...]
The Three Tigers, One Mountain title is a twist on an old Chinese saying that “two tigers cannot share the same mountain,” while the subtitle, A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan, gives an accurate description of the contents. This pairing of the poetic and the [...]
Ray Hecht was born in Israel, raised in the American Midwest, and lived in China for many years. He now calls Taiwan home. He’s written seven books, including South China Morning Blues (published by Blacksmith Books and reviewed on Bookish Asia back in 2015). His latest work is Always Goodbye, an [...]
With two excellent books on the history of baseball in Taiwan, is there need for another work on the subject? Not really, but Empire of Infields: Baseball in Taiwan and Cultural Identity, 1895-1968 is a welcome addition. Like its predecessors, it’s an academic publication where questions of national identity take precedence [...]
Daniel Reid is a prolific writer on Chinese philosophy, medicine, and food. He lived in Taipei from 1973 to 1989, and by number of book titles – more than thirty – and copies sold, he is surely the most successful Taiwan expat writer of all time. His latest book, a [...]
Katy Hui-wen Hung is co-author of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai. Co-written with veteran Taiwan writer Steven Crook and published by Rowman & Littlefield, the book is a landmark work, one of the most significant English-language titles on Taiwan published in the last decade. I always have [...]
Where I live, a bicycle is a necessity of life. It’s the only sensible way to get around a city like Amsterdam with its winding canals and ditto streets. Everyone here rides: men in three-piece suits, women in stiletto heels and kids on their way to school. Bikes are the main [...]