BOOK REVIEWS

Four Taiwanese Writers on ThemselvesChu T’ien-wen, Su Wei Chen, Cheng Chiung-ming and Ye Lingfang respond to our questionnaire

A telling indication of Western countries’ attitudes to Taiwanese writers is the general unavailability of their works in European languages. France is a case in point. When we compare the number of translations into French from books by mainland Chinese writers with that of books by Taiwanese writers, we are struck by a vast disproportion. The French-speaking reader can turn to a bare ten titles of Taiwanese novels or short stories —as against about a hundred literary works from the mainland. It is easy to understand the reasons for this state of affairs: the People’s Republic is supposed to be of greater interest to French people, who are often unable to locate the tiny island of Taiwan on the map; and the fascination that mainland China exerts over the public in the West is far from subsiding. Yet Taiwanese writers were in contact with the great literary movements of the outside world far earlier than their mainland contemporaries, who were bound to silence during the years of that ill-named Cultural Revolution; and in spite of the intense repression that Taiwanese writers were subjected to after 1949 by the Kuomintang, they continued to express themselves. They have created a deep and powerful literature, one influenced by Western culture as much as by traditional Chinese culture, by Japanese culture (50 years of occupation, between 1895 and 1945, are not easily forgotten) and aboriginal culture too; all that without having to respect the Marxist-Maoist dogma that has been clipping the wings of their mainland counterparts ever since Mao Zedong’s intervention in Yanan, in 1942.

At the start of the 1990s, the governmental Commission for the Edification of Culture, taking account of the West’s unfamiliarity with Taiwanese literature, invited to the island a succession of Western writers, publishers, journalists and translators. Conferences on translation were organised, and subsidies were offered to French publishers wishing to publish Taiwanese writing. These efforts did achieve the publication of the books mentioned above (at least of some of them), but Taiwanese literature is still rarely sighted on Western bookshelves, particularly in France.

What follows does not claim to offer any kind of overview of Taiwan’s literary output, but rather to convey some impressions based on written testimony by Taiwanese authors gathered in October 1997. A questionnaire had been sent to them, and their replies give an indication of these writers’ states of mind when faced with the big questions that are being raised on the island in these closing years of the century. The “national” identity, their literature’s place within the Chinese-speaking world and the literary world outside, Taiwan’s future, the role of literature and of the writer…

Four writers replied to our questionnaire:

Chu T’ien-wen (Zhu Tianwen) is the author of numerous collections of short stories, and of novels including one famous book that is often quoted as an example of “post-modernist” writing, Shijimo de huali. This book portrays present-day Taiwanese society in all the minutiae of its “modernity”, going into sometimes trifling details about fashionable perfumes or clothing. Chu T’ien-wen also writes scripts for the film director Hou Hsiao-hsien (The City of Sadness).

Su Wei Chen (Su Weizhen) has written numerous novels and short stories, which have carried off prestigious literary prizes; she also a journalist on the literary supplement of the Wenlianbao.

Cheng Chiung-ming (Zheng Jiongming), who lives in Kaohsiung, is a poet (even though he says he is no longer writing) and editor of the review Wenxue Taiwan: he vigorously upholds the originality of Taiwanese literature in relation to that on the mainland.

Ye Lingfang’s novel Yuanyang dushui has been well received by the critics. It is her first published novel.

In her reply to the question “Why do you write?”, Chu T’ien-wen confesses that she cannot do anything else. Su Wei Chen suggests that she wishes to make time stand still: “Reflecting my present situation makes the space that I occupy become a sort of stable and eternal state, of equal value to time itself.” Cheng Chiung-ming, by contrast, asserts the militant value of his writing: those convicted of the Kaohsiung Incident were to read his collection Fanshu zhi ge in prison… And Ye Lingfang tells us of her “passionate yearning to read” ever since childhood.

The question about influences, either from Chinese or foreign writing, elicits from Chu T’ien-wen and Su Wei Chen the names of Milan Kundera, Gabriel García Márquez, Shen Congwen and Zhang Ailing. Cheng Chiung-ming and Ye Lingfang mention only Taiwanese writers and one Japanese writer, Mishima Yukio, whose sources of inspiration are no doubt closer to Taiwanese writers professing a quite distinct literature from Chinese literature in general. One is struck by the absence, in the replies of these last two writers, of reference to other foreign writers. Ye Lingfang attributes this fact to the poor quality of the translations of foreign books into Chinese. On whether there is one Chinese literature, or several, the four writers are unanimous in saying that literary traditions differ according to the places where they are produced—whether it be mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Southeast Asia. Ye Lingfang justifiably points out that Taiwan’s writers were nurtured by the twin influences of the West and of classical Chinese literature, whereas mainland writers of the same period had only the supposed literature of workers, peasants and soldiers to get their teeth into!

Chu T’ien-wen quotes from Claude Lévi-Strauss on the role of literature: “There is an element in the soul that acts entirely as it chooses.” For her, literature is precisely the expression of the soul when it acts entirely as it chooses. For Su Wei Chen, literature has the role of dramatising facts that attract the public’s attention. So it is with the Taiwanese novels that have had the greatest impact on society in recent years, for instance Jiabian by Wang Wen-hsing (Wang Wenxing), and Li Ang’s very recent collection, Beigang xianglu renren cha which actually caused a scandal. For Cheng Chiung-ming, literature must—without being at the service of politics—nevertheless exert some influence on society, and should offer some sort of comment upon it. That opinion is largely shared by Ye Lingfang: if some people use literature at times to propagate their dogmas, other writers in equal proportion use it justifiably to rebut the very same dogmas.

When it comes to Taiwan’s future, Chu T’ien-wen invites us to seek a reply within her novels. Su Wei Chen declares that she refuses to think of the future, so as not to find herself one day unable to continue writing… Cheng Chiung-ming makes a reply that is above all political: Taiwan will remain a democracy in spite of the threats to which the latter is subjected. And Ye Lingfang answers by wondering about the future of mainland China (will it break up, on the model of the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev period?) on which Taiwan’s own future most depends.

Replying to the question on Taiwan’s literary schools, Su Wei Chen declares that she does not know to which movement or literary school she belongs, whereas Chu T’ien-wen traces her literary beginnings to realism, then to post-modernism and lastly to “post-constructivism”, before admitting that she is no longer clear how to define herself. Cheng Chiung-ming says he belongs to the Li Society of Poetry (the character li represents the woven bamboo hat worn by Taiwan’s peasants) and claims a realistic complexion, close to the German notion of neue Sachlichkeit, the “new objectivity” (xin jiwuzhuyi). And Ye Lingfang thinks that this question of literary schools is extremely damaging to the quality of Taiwan’s literature. She condemns the writers who seek at any price to imitate Western movements: she says that, when García Márquez was translated in Taiwan, the writer Chang Ta-chun (Zhang Dachun) rushed to imitate him; and that, when Kundera in his turn was translated, he aped him too. She goes so far as to describe Chang Ta-chun as Taiwan’s greatest literary parrot. Ye Lingfang admits to disliking books that reflect an excessive concern with form, and in this regard she does not hesitate to claim some degree of conservatism.

When they are asked why Taiwan’s literature is so little known in the world outside, the four writers are at one in thinking that political reasons have prevented Taiwanese writing from being more widely published. Moreover, it is the shortage of translations that has denied access to non Chinese-speaking readers. Yet, in the opinion of all, the quality of Taiwanese writing—and of Chinese writing in general—is in no way inferior to that in other countries. Among the books she thinks are most representative, Su Wei Chen mentions Niezi (Crystal Boys), by Pai Hsien-yung (Bai Xianyong), and Jiabian by Wang Wenxing, but also a quite recent book by a young writer, Qiu Miaojin, Mengmate yishu. Its author killed herself after publication of her book, which qualifies as post-modernist in the sense that it expresses the despair of young people who cannot find any place for themselves, nor any satisfactory system of values, in modern society whether Asian or European. Su Wei Chen says that she also appreciates Chang Ta-chun’s political novel, Sahuang de xintu. Ye Lingfang also refers to Pai Hsien-yung, together with the novel by a young Tainan writer, Wu Jue, who is closely connected to the “nativist writers”; his novel entitled Shigu has often been recommended to us.

Through the reactions of these writers one may perceive the split between those who aspire to “modernist” or post-modernist writing, stressing the concern with form, and those who seek above all to assert the originality of Taiwanese culture through its literature. In these four writers, all Taiwanese, aspirations diverge to fuel a passionate debate, and one that is echoed by the island’s many literary reviews. The richness of the argument, the profusion and the quality of the novels published in Taiwan, should encourage more researchers, translators, critics and publishers to take an interest in this writing and to bring it to the world’s attention.

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Questionnaire

1. Why do you write?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: Because I can’t do anything else.

CHEN CHIUNG-MING: I write poems. As I care about this society, I should not like to be a man at odds with his time, who holds out against it. I hope to express my concern for people through my work, and through my respect for human beings. Writing, for me, is taking a step back towards honesty, while sounding a critical voice towards the injustices of this society.

SU WEI CHEN: So far I have the impression that I shall not manage to explain the basic reason for this desire to write. I think that writing has perhaps always been for me a thing “of the moment”. Reflecting my present situation makes the space that I occupy become a sort of stable and eternal state, of equal value to time itself. To ask the question is already to answer it. Of course, this is probably a matter of history. There are only questions, but no answers.

YE LINGFANG: Frankly, I have never thought about this question. I remember only that, when I was at primary school, I felt a passionate yearning to read; of course, at that age, I was unaware that there was something called literature; I did not read for literature; it was more an instinctive impulse. It was only at secondary school age that I discovered my desire to write. I began to write down stories in exercise-books, stories that today seem very naïve to me. I used to get my classmates to read them. In this act of writing, and being read, I gained immense satisfaction.

Of course, what I write now has nothing to do with what I wrote at that time; for what I wrote at that time reflected nothing more than an extraordinary longing; it was a young girl’s first faltering attempts to express herself, a vague hunger for life, and for love. My writing today has a goal, because my experience of life has enabled me to forge a number of opinions that I want to express. This means that, while satisfying my desire to write and to be read, I want to discuss certain questions.

2. Which Chinese writers do you like best? And which foreign writers?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: Not including the classical Chinese writers, I would mention among the modern generation Shen Congwen and Zhang Ailing. Among living foreign writers: Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino, Milan Kundera, Patrick Süskind, Lawrence Block.

SU WEI CHEN: I prefer the modern novelists, and books that do not have any “regionalist” colour. Among Chinese writers, I shall mention Shen Congwen, Zhang Ailing, Wang Zengqi. Among foreigners, Virginia Woolf, Milan Kundera, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: The Taiwanese writers I like are Ye Shitao, Dong Fangbai. The poets, Chen Qianwu, Bai Huo, Li Minyong. I like the Japanese writer Mishima Yukio.

YE LINGFANG: I think that, in general, the term “Chinese writers” refers to writers from the People’s Republic. In that case—if I trust my most subjective tastes and criteria—it is Zhang Xianliang’s name that comes to mind first. I appreciate his depth, and his interpretation of life. This interpretation, this profundity, no other writer I know can match them. Regarding foreign writers, since the quality of translations is not good here, and since my reading is rather chaotic, I cannot reply to that question.

3. Among your own works, which is the one you prefer? And why?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: Huangren shouji. It is my most recent book. It is a fault of mine to imagine that, each time I finish a book, it is the best of all those I have written before.

SU WEI CHEN: Chenmo zhi dao. This book gets the closest to my present physical and mental state. From another point of view, I feel perhaps even closer to Mengshu. The book is a conversation with myself.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: My volume of poems Fanshu zhi ge. It is my third collection of poems. It came out in 1981. It is my view of Taiwanese society in the 1970s: I make a judgement of it, from a social, political and cultural point of view. The people who were convicted following the Kaohsiung Incident had this collection passed to them in prison, and they were very moved to read it—they told me so when they got out.

YE LINGFANG: So far I have only written one novel, Yuanyang dushui. So I have no choice—but I do really like this book.

I am sure you know that a novelist’s first book is the purest, the one that has been the least “polluted” from a technical point of view. It may still be rather naïve, but one can, right from the first work, perceive an author’s literary talent, and his potential.

4. In your view, does Taiwanese literature exist on its own? Is it the same for mainland Chinese literature, and Hong Kong literature, and the Chinese literature from overseas—or is there only one Chinese literature?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: There is at least a difference between Taiwanese literature and mainland literature: although both have recourse to the Chinese language, the situation is like that of British English and American English. There are very clear differences between Taiwanese writing and that of the mainland.

SU WEIZHEN: Since literature is the product of a nation’s common culture, I think that there is only one Chinese literature. Even if it were transferred to the moon, it would still be Chinese literature. Since literature reflects life and thought shared in common by the elements of a nation, I think that each region will decide for itself to form its own patch of literary geography, based on the passing of time. In the course of these past fifty years, which have been so significant from a literary and political point of view, Chinese literature has not managed to find itself a coherent place in which to settle, but it has managed to create different written languages. When Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland were unable to develop together, having encountered political obstacles, they became isolated one from another on the level of language, in order to protect themselves. That is how different literary states of mind arise. One can say that the literatures of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong were formed naturally. G.B. Shaw said that it was with the help of a shared language that the break between Britain and the United States of America had been achieved.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: Al though the literatures of Taiwan and China both use the same language—Chinese—because of their diff erences of geographic environment, culture and political system, Taiwanese literature has developed independently from Chinese liter ature for more than seventy years, to the point that it has become an original literature in its own right.

YE LINGFANG: When I write I hardly consider this kind of question. The only demand that I make on myself is remaining faithful in my writing to the spirit of my roots and my origins. I am of pure Taiwanese stock. My ancestors crossed the seas to come to Taiwan several centuries ago, and they lost all contact with my ancestors on the mainland. We grew up by putting down roots in this island. On a cultural level we have inherited the Minnan or Hakka culture. Later on, in 1895, the island was ceded to Japan by the treaty of Shimonoseki. During its fifty years under Japanese rule, Taiwan was deeply imbued with Japanese culture. Even today there are many Taiwanese writers who have not only had a Japanese education but have also been deeply influenced by the trends of Japanese thinking, and who still write in Japanese. When, in 1949, the Kuomintang withdrew to Taiwan, a group of eminent Chinese intell ectuals followed them, which gave Taiwan a renewed exposure to the culture of China’s traditional elite. The difference was that, during the fifty years of Kuomintang rule, since our political culture was generally open to the West, the dominant culture of Taiwan was characterised by the convergence of traditional Chinese culture and Western culture. Not only has our thinking been influenced by the cultures of Europe and America, but literary creation itself has been vigorously confronted with their literature. What I call traditional Chinese culture is what the Kuomintang promoted in education, that of well-read, orthodox people—who held themselves apart from the proletarianisation recommended by the Communist Party. The culture and education upheld by the Kuomintang do not draw their models from the literature of workers, peasants and soldiers, but aim to preserve the more refined aspects of Chinese culture and literature. Thus the main literary genres from each dynasty, such as Shijing, Yuefu, Tang poetry, Song odes, parallel prose—I am not familiar with these terms —have filled out the education that we received in secondary school. Because of these peculiar circumstances, Taiwan’s Chinese culture has become sharply separated from that on the mainland and in Hong Kong—a tendency that is of course felt in its literature.

For these reasons I should advise people to speak of “Huaxia literature (10)” rather than of Chinese literature. It is a literary tradition built up by well-educated people sharing an original culture, even though they live in different regions, whether in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or southeast Asia. They share a national feeling and they all write in the same language, but in their writing they reflect different experiences and historical situations. Those are the differences that make up the distinctive attributes.

For example, since I have inherited my parents’ memories of the period of Japanese rule, in my novel one can doubtless find signs and symbols of Japanese culture. Under these conditions, are we still speaking of Chinese literature? Here is another example: when the old and highly respected writer Ye Shitao describes the Taiwanese people’s situation during the period of Japanese occupation, in his collection of short stories Yizu de hunli is this still Chinese literature? Some second generation writers evoke memories of the mainland in their work; but, for me, I share with the mainland writers only cultural and national feelings, for I have lost all recollection of mainland China.

5. The book, or books, that you are writing: what are they about?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: I am thinking of writing a novel with the title Nüwu. In China, sorcerers are at the origins of the divine, of writing and of art. This novel will be the story of some women.

SU WEI CHEN: I am in the process of writing a series of stories exploring the obscure areas of love, such as that between parents or friends, and affection, as well as the obscure feelings that exist between people of the same family: father and daughter, mother and son, brothers and sisters.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: I am not writing anything at the moment.

YE LINGFANG: A novel with a strong historical background, set against the Franco-Chinese war. In 1885, France decided to occupy Taiwan, because of its confrontations with China over Vietnam. Taiwan then became something at stake, and an important battlefield, between the two countries. Although the book’s subject is the history of Taiwan, I do not intend once more to write out the historical events, because we already have very clear documents on this subject. It is needless to rewrite them. My book is about history, and that is because I have discovered that history constantly repeats itself. Thus, while dealing with a given historical period, I research the social phenomena that are parallel with those of today and I give special emphasis to them. Putting it another way, I use the past to censure the present.

6. In your opinion, what role should literature play in modern society?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: Faced by the system of values prevailing in society, literature has always spoken with a voice from the margin, a different voice. Lévi-Strauss said that there is an element in the soul that acts entirely as it chooses. I think that, from some perspectives, literature is the expression of the soul when it acts entirely as it chooses.

SU WEI CHEN: The role of dramatisation. Thanks to its role, the public approaches literature because of the themes it treats. So it was, for example, with the novel Jiabian by Wang Wen-hsing, Kan hai de rizi by Huang Chun-ming or, more recently, with Beigang xianglu renren cha.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: In addition to expressing artistic beauty in different forms (poetry, novels, drama), literature must go on to offer an analysis of human beings, and to exercise influence over society and its times. Literature cannot remain outside society, but it is not dependent on politics.

YE LINGFANG: It is an old argument, but I think that literature must express the problems of life. Each writer speaks of the questions that most worry him or her. Thus, in the world of literature, everything is possible, everything is allowed. Literature is the activity that is least obedient to pre-conditions. Of course, some people use literature to spread dogma, but there exists the same proportion of writers who use literature to destroy the very same dogmas. If anyone did manage to say what literature was, or attempted to say what use it was, it would be very strange.

7. What is your view of Taiwan’s future?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: Impossible to say. Or rather, I shall say that I answer with my novels; I have nothing to add to what I say in my novels.

SU WEI CHEN: Future in what field? If we are talking of writing, I can only say that, for me, I do not see the future in an abstract way. It is a sort of ideal, immediate and comforting. I always avoid thinking of the future, or I risk finding myself very realistic, and then I could not write. As regards the future of literature as a whole, my personal tendency is to seek refuge in my culture of origin, for fear of foundering in a vast cultural quagmire.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: Although it is confronted with the vast shadow of China, Taiwan has become a democratic country, having ended martial law and brought in reforms. The effective strength of Taiwan on the economic front will enable it to achieve stability on the political front, to extend those reforms. China’s offensive in the international sphere, its military threats, will not in any event force Taiwan to give way. The interactions between Taiwan’s economy and those of Asia and the outside world will enable Taiwan to survive, albeit with difficulty.

YE LINGFANG: At the political level I must say that I know nothing about it, because the variables are too complex. I think that in China itself there are also many problems, and that, perhaps after China has become democratic, latent separatist elements will suddenly awaken and explode. Because there is no freedom of speech, no one knows if those separatist elements are strong or not. It was the same here, in the period of Kuomintang dominance, when the Taiwanese people’s feelings for their native soil never came to light. Since democracy was introduced in Taiwan, those feelings have not only appeared but have triggered a struggle between the Kuomintang and the independence movement. It was the same thing in the Soviet Union, where no one suspected the different republics had separatist aspirations; but as soon as Gorbachev brought in political reforms, the USSR disintegrated, and each republic recovered its independence.

8. To what movement or school do you think you belong?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: In the beginning I belonged to the realist movement. Then I passed through the stages of post-modernism and “post-constructivism”. Now, I no longer know to what movement I belong.

SU WEI CHEN: I have no idea.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: I belong to the Li Society of Poetry. My work has a complexion of “new objectivity” (neue Sachlichkeit) and of realism.

YE LINGFANG: I particularly hate the notion of a school, because in Taiwan’s literary milieu people talk endlessly about the literary schools of Europe and the United States. If you take, for example, Mr Chang Ta-chun (Zhang Dachun), he has become Taiwan’s greatest parrot. When they translated García Márquez into Chinese, he imitated magical realism; when they introduced Milan Kundera, he imitated Kundera. Since he was quickly able to put himself on a level with these writers, he has become the most fashionable “monster child” in Taiwan.

That is why the literary movements represented by the “Shibao prize” and the “Lianhebao prize” have become a competition between European and American literary movements. For this reason, recent literary output is artificial, with form taking precedence over content, a content that is very dry, empty of any savour. For me, I think I belong to the school of those not trying to catch up with the others, those who think only about writing properly; I do not care to know if the form I use is fashionable or not. I am a newcomer: I do not wish to pontificate about questions of form. If, when it comes to the technical side, I am a little conservative, and behind the times, too bad. What I care about is knowing whether the content of what I write is sufficiently strong and profound.

9. Who in your view is at present the best Taiwanese writer?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: Each writer believes he or her is the best.

SU WEI CHEN: I reserve my answer.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: Ye Shitao, Dong Fangbai, Bai Huo.

YE LINGFANG: I cannot answer that question, because it depends in fact on a person’s tastes. For me, I do not like writing that makes too great a display of technique, yet that is one of the faults of most present-day Taiwanese writers. Their books are not only difficult to read but also boring. That is why I do not like them.

10. What are, in your view, the greatest obstacles to Chinese writing being appreciated in the rest of the world?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: Translation.

SU WEI CHEN: For the period before 1987, the date when exchanges across the Taiwan Strait began, I think that the representativity of Taiwanese literature was in itself an obstacle. Since contacts were resumed, I think that the Chinese have been mutually rejecting each other, and that therefore there is no specialised organisation responsible for promoting Chinese literature throughout the world.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: For political reasons, Taiwanese literature has been neglected, and has not been able to receive the fair evaluation that it deserved. Although the Chinese population is numerous, the literature of mainland China is not necessarily on a superior level to that of Taiwan – yet some of its poets and novelists have monopolised the outside world’s attention.

YE LINGFANG: If you are referring to the Nobel Prize, the greatest obstacle is white people’s language and their sense of superiority. If you mean by “world” the world in which we all live, in this case I think that Chinese literature is already a world literature and has no need to be recognised. As a Chinese-speaking reader, I consider that the best Chinese authors are in no way inferior to some Nobel prize-winner. I would go further, and say that among the Nobel Prize-winners there are those I do not like at all, and I consider that their work is not work of a universal character.

11. In your view, which are the most representative works by Taiwanese authors?

CHU T’IEN-WEN: When A Cheng came to Taiwan for the first time in 1994 he mentioned the names of three writers: Chang Ta-chun, Zhu Tianxin and Chu T’ien-wen. A Cheng is a writer whom you know: perhaps the list he drew up has some significance for you.

SU WEI CHEN: Shanlu by Chen Yingzhen, Lazifu by Li Yongping, Jiabian by Wang Wenxing, Mengmate yishu by Qiu Miaojin, Niezi by Bai Xianyong, Qiuyang sijiu by Liu Daren, Hongloumeng duan by Gao Yang, Ziji de tiankong by Yuan Naonao, Sahuang de xintu by Chang Ta-chun.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: Langtaosha by Dong Fangbai, Hanye sanbuqu by Li Qiao and Shafu (The Butcher’s Wife) by Li Ang.

YE LINGFANG: As I said earlier, it is very subjective, I can only mention some books that correspond to my tastes: Taipei ren by Bai Xianyong, Qianjiang youshui, qianjiang yue by Mme Xiao Lihong, Li Ji’s novel Jingyue penghu, Wu Jue’s collection Shigu, etc. Not only can one find in these works ideas on Taiwan’s historical and social development, but what is more they are aesthetically very successful. Outside these books, Wang Wenxing’s Jiabian and Meirentu by the late author Wang Zhen are both considered classics in Taiwan’s critical circles, but I have not read them: I cannot speak about them.

12. Please describe your present situation.

CHU T’IEN-WEN: I have devoted the whole year to writing a screen play: I adapted a “brothel novel” from the end of the Qing dynasty: Haishanghua. The director is Hou Xiaoxian, and it is being filmed now. I am getting ready to write the novel I mentioned: Nüwu.

SU WEI CHEN: At present I am living through a dark time. There is no clarity to any of the moods I find myself in. For that reason, I will not go into them now.

CHENG CHIUNG-MING: I am continuing to edit the review Wenxue Taiwan, and I help promote Taiwanese literature through the Wenxue Taiwan foundation. I hope new work will come to light.

YE LINGFANG: I have finished my second novel: I am looking for a publisher. Next I plan to write about Taiwan; I shall describe the environment that is familiar to me, as well as Taiwanese people who are familiar to me.