May 2016: Shih Chiung-yu 師瓊瑜

Shih Chiung-Yu was born in Taiwan in 1968. She grew up in Taitung, a village of aboriginal Taiwan. Her writings involve stories of conflicts: conflicts between nations, conflicts between generations, conflicts between genders, conflicts between the East and the West. conflicts between racial prejudices.

She has been a writer, essayist, news reporter and documentary filmmaker for many years. Awards she won include the China Times Literature Award, and the United Daily News Literature Award.

(Bio from Balestier Press)

Shih's novel Masked Dolls, translated by Wang Xinlin and Poppy Toland, was published by Balestier Press in 2016.

An Australian woman, burdened by the original sin of her Caucasian ancestors, and a Taiwanese woman, haunted by the memories of 100 years of conflict in her homeland, meet as backpackers while travelling in South Korea. As they live and travel together, two women in flight, one from the East and the other from the West, struggle to find a way out of their personal dilemmas.

There's an interesting review of the novel here from Naomi Frisby's site on women's writing, and here from Christine Sun.

A collection of three novellas, Wedding in Autumn, translated by Darryl Sterk, will be published in June 2016. Thank you to Balestier Press for letting us reprint the title story for this month's bookclub. You can read it here, in both Chinese and English.

And we're delighted that Shih Chiung-yu will be giving a talk and reading in Leeds on May 5th. Please see our events page for more details!