The disparities of COVID-19’s grip over us is becoming gradually more apparent as certain countries celebrate recovery, while others continue to shelter in place. In Taiwan and Japan, processions are resuming after the interruption, with film festivals and award announcements taking over headlines, while in the US the situation remains somehow at once unpredictable and static. In Taiwan, reportage literature seeks to reset old injustices; in Japan, the prestigious Akutagawa Prize reveals its nominees; and in the US, a beloved literary event is put off for another year. Read our editors’ dispatches from the ground here!
Vivian Szu-Chin Chih, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Taiwan
The 2020 United Daily News Literary Prize has been awarded to the Malaysia-born Sinophone novelist, Chang Kuei-hsing (張貴興), who has been living in Taiwan for the last four decades. The prestigious award went to the author’s latest novel, 野豬渡河 (Wild Boar Crosses the River) which depicts his hometown in Malaysia, Sarawak—a city occupied by the Japanese in the 1940s. Asymptote has previously featured Chang’s “Siren Song” (translated by Anna Gustafson) in our Winter 2016 issue.
The Taiwanese author notable for his reportage literature, Lan Bozhou (藍博洲), will soon have new book published by Taipei’s INK Publishing in July: 尋找二二八失蹤的宋斐如 (Searching for the Missing Song Feiru in the February 28 Incident ). Consistent with Lan’s previous focus on giving a voice to the victims of Taiwan’s White Terror (1947-1987), this new work again inquires into the difficult question of the whereabouts of Song Feiru, a Taiwanese intellectual and founder of a newspaper criticizing the government in the 1940s. The namesake of the book was kidnapped by the Kuomintang and went missing after the outbreak of the infamous February 28 Incident in 1947.
Although the global situation of COVID-19 has been rapidly evolving with uncertainty, Taiwan has luckily arrived at a relatively safe status, and many local activities are resuming this summer as a result. The island-wide screenings of Xin Qi’s (辛奇, 1924-2010) films from mid-July to late-November, and the Golden Horse Classic Film Festival (with the theme of the beloved Italian director, Federico Fellini) from late-July to mid-August, are among the events leading this trend of recovery in Taipei. Xin Qi was one of the few prolific and prominent Taiwanese-language film directors in the 1960s, whose five cross-genre cinematic works have been digitally restored by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, and will be screened around Taiwan’s theatres, both new and old, during the festival. As for the Golden Horse Classic Film Festival, it is a part of the global tribute to Fellini’s 100th birthday anniversary (“Fellini 100”), and will broadcast twenty-four of the director’s films, most of which are 4K versions, freshly restored.
Clémence Lucchini, Educational Arm Assistant, reporting from the United States (Boston):
If other countries are now working to resume a life closer to the pre-pandemic time, the U.S. is still in limbo due to its recent records on daily new contaminations. The Fourth of July weekend, which is synonymous with heat, fireworks, and fried dough more than celebrating a problematic history to many, usually kicks off the summer festivities. This year, many local activities have been cancelled in Boston, including my favorite: Lit Crawl Boston. This “unique celebration of irreverent literary events in unexpected spaces” usually gathers rejoicing readers and participants for a few evening sessions. These merry readers will have to wait one short year for Lit Crawl Boston to resume its decadent literary activities in June 2021.
Although the economic impact of the pandemic will probably change the small business landscape in the next months, in Boston, it seems the situation should improve for bookstores. A new bookstore, Beacon Hill Books, had planned to open in the fall in Beacon Hill, but as the pandemic slowed down the process, the owner still hopes to open it a year from now. Brookline Booksmith has reopened for browsing following Massachusetts guidelines for reopening, and is still conducting curbside pick-up. Last winter, they announced they will expand by adding a bar and café on the same street in June 2020, but no confirmation has been given yet regarding the opening of this new space in the next year.
Xiao Yue Shan, Blog Editor, reporting from Japan
Writers whose novels are under consideration for Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, were announced last month, with one name in particular striking a note of familiarity. 石原燃 Nen Ishihara is a playwright debuting as a novelist with 赤い砂を蹴る (Kicking the Red Sand), and also happens to be the daughter of renowned fictionist Yuko Tsushima, who is in turn the daughter of Japan’s “literary bad boy”, Osamu Dazai. Headlines predictably sensationalized this imposing lineage, taking certain note that Dazai was always somewhat disgruntled at never having won the Akutagawa, likely due to internal manipulations during the selection process. Yet, in Ishihara’s work, it is evident that it’s not this abstracted relation to Dazai that directs her fiction, but the relationship with her mother—who passed away in 2016 from lung cancer—that sends a thread of reality through this work. Kicking the Red Sand features an intimate portrait of a mother-daughter relationship painted in retrospect when, after the mother’s death, the protagonist Chika takes a trip to Brazil with her friend, who has also recently experienced a difficult loss. It is, with tenderness and restraint, an elegy delivered in a similar spirit as its subject, as Tsushima’s own acclaimed autofiction, Territory of Light, was also devoted to the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship. It is a meeting of souls.
The other selections include おかもと まなぶ Manabu Okamoto’s アウア・エイジ (Our Age), in which an unnamed protagonist receives news that a important figure from his past has passed away, and this leads him to trace through his memories of a past replete with cinema, romance, and intrigue; 高山羽根子 Haneko Takayama’s 首里の馬 (Shuri’s Horse), a novel that uses the relationship between a woman and a stray horse to reveal details about the tumultuous history of Okinawa; 遠野遥 Haruka Tono’s 破局 (Catastrophe), a narrative that zeroes in on obsessive depictions of the body during physical training and sexual escapades; and lastly, 三木三奈 Mina Miki’s アキちゃん (Aki-chan), a disturbing depiction of a child’s inexplicable hatred for the titular Aki-chan. Results of the Akutagawa Prize (along with the results of its sister award, the Naoki Prize) will be announced on July 15!
On July 5, the Tokyo gubernatorial elections resulted in the landslide win for incumbent Yuriko Koike, which also sent 石井妙子 Taeko Ishii’s biography of the governor, 女帝 小池百合子 (Empress Koike Yuriko) to the top of the bestselling lists. In this savage depiction of Koike’s career and person, Ishii raises suspicions about her graduation from the University of Cairo, examines the careful curation of her public persona, alerts the readers to her “cold demeanour” towards the victims of various tragedies in Japan, and writes in chilling terms of her crushing tactics. The book also examines the complications and significations of Koike’s femininity in her political career, leading to ruminations about the woman politician in Japan. After its publication in April, the book received tremendous attention in the media, with many platforms marking it as necessary reading, while some also commenting on Ishii’s seemingly pursuant agenda to take Koike down. Still, the revelations have had no apparent effect on Koike’s popularity, as the governor sails into her second term with the second largest number of votes in the history of Tokyo elections.
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