Supported by the Ministry of Culture (MOC) and National Museum of Taiwan Literature (NMTL), Strangers Press, a British publisher focusing on literature of non-English speaking countries, is publishing a collection of Taiwanese novellas and short stories titled “ká-sióng (假想),” which means make-believe, imagine, or hypothesize in Taiwanese Taigi.
The five works featured in the collection include “Not Your Child (別人的孩子)” by Lâu Tsí-û (劉芷妤); “Cage (囚徒)” by Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津); “Mountain Rat (山瘟)” by Lulyang Nomin (魯亮．諾命); “Cloud Labour (搬雲記)” by Sabrina Huang (黃麗群); and “Social (臉書)” by Lamula Pakawyan (然木柔．巴高揚). These novellas, addressing various issues concerning from Indigenous peoples to sexual minorities, showcase the rich diversity of the Taiwanese literary scene.
Chen Pin-chuan (陳斌全), head of the Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the U.K., noted that the translators selected this time are mostly non-native English speakers from Taiwan, which is different from the way such translations are usually done. The translators of the abovementioned works are Jenna Tang (湯絜蘭), Shengchi Hsu (許勝吉), Yu Teng-Wei (游騰緯), Lin King (金翎), as well as Wen-chi Li (利文祺) and Colin Bramwell. Describing the collection as a “sampling of Taiwanese snacks,” Chen also hoped that these literary pieces with diverse themes could spark up British readers’ imagination for Taiwanese literature.
For more information, go to the publisher’s website.