David on Formosa

Walk into almost any bookstore and you can be sure to find a plethora of books, both fiction and non-fiction, about China. Yet there seems to be very few titles about Taiwan published in English. Does this mean there is no great Taiwanese literature or has it simply slipped through the cracks of the fickle world of publishing?

I suspect the answer is the latter. I recently stumbled across a very interesting book from Taiwan by chance in a second hand bookshop. On reading the synopsis on the back cover I didn't hesitate to buy it. The book, A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers (千江有水有千江月) by Hsiao Li-hung (蕭麗紅), is beautifully written and works on many levels. It is a love story, a snapshot of life in a traditional Taiwanese family in the 1970s and finally it is about the spirit of Zen.

This book is worth reading both as a great piece of literature and for its insights into Taiwanese culture. It provides a snapshot of life in rural Taiwan at a time when traditions had not yet been swept away by the tides of urbanisation, industrialisation and increasing affluence. It is an intimate portrait of a world now largely lost. The quality of the translation is very good. Many of the idioms and folk tales that form part of the story would not translate directly into English. However, the translator has managed to render them into a form that is easily readable and that maintains what I imagine to be something of the style of the work in its original language.

I am not sure if the English translation is readily available in Taiwan. If you can read Chinese you should have no difficulty finding the original Chinese edition of the book. The book is part of a series of translations of Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan published by Columbia University Press. Full bibliographic details and the publisher's synopsis are reproduced below.

A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers
by Hsiao Li-hung (translated by Michelle Wu)
Columbia University Press, New York, 2000
ISBN: 0231117930

Synopsis Winner of the 1980 United Daily Literature Competition, this novel about love, betrayal, family life, and the power of tradition in small-town Taiwan was an instant bestseller when first published in Taiwan and went through 60 printings in its Chinese language edition. At once a bittersweet romance and a vividly detailed portrait of life in a southern Taiwanese coastal town in the 1970s, this lyrical work affirms the values and traditions that have nurtured Taiwan through the centuries and will continue to in an increasingly industrialized society.