Aoyama Chizuko, a young novelist from Nagasaki, Japan, travels to Taiwan in 1938 seeking authentic island life and cuisine. She is accompanied by a Taiwanese woman named Chizuru, who becomes her interpreter and fulfills her dreams. Despite growing infatuated with Chizuru, a heartbreaking separation leads Chizuko to understand the reasons for their distance. The novel, disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text, delves into lost colonial histories and explores power dynamics in intimate relationships. Originally published in Mandarin Chinese in 2020, it won Taiwan's highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award.
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Graywolf Press