Some of you may remember my reviews of the Keshiki and Yeoyu series, Japanese and Korean stories courtesy of Strangers Press (a project associated with the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia). Well, they’re now back with their latest series, this time from Taiwan, and I’ve just received review copies. It’s called ká-sióng, which can be translated as ‘make-believe’, and today sees me looking at the first two of the five books. They’re two very different tales, but as the series title suggests, what they have in common is more than a touch of imagination.
*****
Lâu Tsí-û’s ‘Not Your Child’ (translated by Jenna Tang) gets off to a feverish start, introducing us to a woman on a train in rush hour, jostled by her fellow passengers as she attempts to get off. Not the best time for a phone call from work, then:
“Where the fuck are you, Chou Yu-Jie? Facebook is exploding and you’re doing nothing? All the phones are ringing like crazy, nobody has the time to answer them for you, get it?”
p.6 (Strangers Press, 2024)
Unfortunately, the start of Yu-Jie’s annual leave just happens to coincide with a scandal blowing up at work, one she’s partly responsible for…
After the frenetic first pages, we gradually get a clearer picture of what’s going on. Yu-Jie works in the office of a Taiwanese MP, and the politician’s comments on a recent incident, an apparent assault on a child, have sparked outrage online. As the flame wars spiral out of control, Yu-Jie’s boss threatens to spontaneously combust – so what’s so important that she refuses to return to the office?
‘Not Your Child’ is a clever story that carefully drip-feeds information to the reader, skipping back and forth in time and focusing now on the scandal, now on Yu-Jie and her hellish train journey. Part of the issue is that the politician has no children of her own, and the general public seizes on this fact to attack her mercilessly, accusing her of heartlessness in her attempts to stick to her long-held policy of reeducation over punishment. Cleverly, the tables are then turned when it come to light that there’s more to the story than first appeared, with those shouting the loudest suddenly changing their tune.
It’s a breathless, powerful story, with commentary about Taiwanese society seamlessly woven throughout. Yu-jie’s stress is palpable, the train so packed she can hardly keep her phone in her hand, and temperatures rise, both metaphorically and literally. We’re carried along on her race against time, both to stave off public opinion and prevent something even worse from happening, at which point it’s probably best that I offer something of a trigger warning – you see, the truth behind Yu-Jie’s journey is rather disturbing, and some readers may well find it upsetting…
*****
Qiu Miaojin’s ‘Cage’ (translated by Shengchi Hsu), on the other hand, is disturbing in quite different ways. At the heart of the story is Li Wen, a man who, on the brink of suicide, meets a young woman, Ping, an encounter that persuades both of them to reconsider their decision to end their lives. Five years on, and Li Wen is now a highly successful newspaper editor, destined for big things – at which point, Ping reenters his life.
The writer’s name might be familiar to some of you as some of her work has made it into English, including Notes of a Crocodile (translated by Bonnie Huie) and Last Notes from Montmartre (tr. Ari Larissa Heinrich). This shorter piece provides a nice taste of the writer’s style, with the fairly ‘normal’ story of Li Wen and Ping intertwined with a darker, more unusual strand, one that confronts the reader from the first page:
The scowl on your face is grotesque: boat-shaped mouth, jaw clenched, nostrils twice their usual size, eyeballs bulging in their sockets. Fingers entangle your hair. Suddenly you raise and open your mouth to unleash a prolonged scream that goes rough, then shrill, then hoarse, like a volcano spouting lava from your throat.
p.5 (Strangers Press, 2024)
What follows are scenes of a ‘cage’, a room with chains, a mirror and an entrance/exit that the entity trapped within seems unable to make use of…
I’m not sure if magical-realism is the best description, but there’s certainly something a little bizarre about ‘Cage’. At work, Li Wen seems to be a successful, well-adjusted person, but at home it’s a different story, and early on we’re shown encounters with ‘Him’, a man who shares Li Wen’s home (and makes a bit of a mess of it). The second meeting with Ping also produces some memorable scenes, such as time spent in her apartment, under siege from a typhoon, with the couple floating above the water and mess.
Qiu’s story isn’t exactly your average, straight-forward narrative, but it’s enjoyable all the same. There’s a sense of love and loss underpinning it all, along with the struggle to move on, to release oneself from the self-constructed cage of painful memories. Many readers will also suspect that not all is as it seems, both with Ping and with the mysterious roommate, and despite the foul language in places (along with healthy doses of filth and excrement), it’s all strangely compelling.
*****
This is my third look at Strangers Press’ work, but as it turns out, they have several other projects under their belt. Other series visit Switzerland, the Netherlands and Lithuania, so if that sounds like your kind of thing, feel free to check out the whole story so far. Oh, and keep an eye out for my next vicarious trip to Taiwan, hopefully in the not-too-distant future!