Taiwan Travelogue

 

Taiwan Travelogue / Yang Shuang-Zi
trans. from the Mandarin by Lin King
read by Sarah Skaer
Old Saybrook, CT: Tantor, 2025, c2020.

I listened to the audiobook of this recent International Booker prize winner. It was pretty good, although some of the narrator's choices for voices of the different characters grated on me a bit. I got used to it after a while - it's long enough that you can become accustomed! 

It's the story of Aoyama Chizuko, a Japanese journalist and novelist who been invited to Taiwan in 1938,by the ruling Japanese government. She wants to get an understanding of this region so plans to stay for a year to get the real feeling of it. As part of this, she is assigned an interpreter - Chizuro is a young woman about her age, who even shares some of the characters in her name. They both love eating, so travel around the country eating local foods, among the official visits and readings that Aoyama must do as part of her contract there. She is delighted with her interpreter and wants to become close friends with her, but there is something that Chizuro always holds back. It takes until the end of the story for Aoyama to grasp why. 

This book was published in Mandarin, presenting itself as a translation of an old Japanese book. This is a clever way to distance the political climate of current Taiwan from Chinese politics but still make a strong point about colonialism and autonomy. It also shows clearly that colonialism is not only political or 'big picture' but that it affects intimate relationships just as much. 

So much for the ideas behind the book. What was my experience reading it? I felt it was a slow burn -- there is so much about food that I found myself getting bored. I think you have to be a real foodie to follow along with Aoyama's culinary experiments with excitement. However, there was enough other detail in the story that I knew there would be a payoff, so continued. I'm glad I did. The last couple of chapters made it all worth it. I can understand how food and regional cooking are also reflections of colonialism, and a visceral, daily way to show its effects. But the lengthy descriptions of food are just not highly interesting to me personally. 

Still, the characters and the relationships were worth following, and the book as a whole was a good read. Glad I was able to find this one to listen to this month! 

Translation Thursday

  

It's Translation Thursday! Each Thursday this month I'm going to share the translation I'm currently reading plus a few more on my reading list. Here's today's list:

Currently Reading:

The Woman Dies / Aoko Matsuda
trans. from the Japanese by Polly Barton

To Read: 

Five Blessings for a Wedding / Maiko Seo
trans. from the Japanese by Laurel Taylor

Sakura / Kanako Nishi 
trans. from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell

How to Use 3,000 Yen / Hika Harada
trans. from the Japanese by Alison Watts

Letters From Klara

 

Letters from Klara / Tove Jansson
trans. from the Swedish by Thomas Teal
read by Indira Varma
Copenhagen: Saga Egmont, 2024, c1991.

I like Tove Jansson's writing, and found this collection of short stories that I hadn't yet read; I'm glad I picked it up because I really enjoyed it. It contains 13 stories, and they are reflective of Jansson's concerns and style. 

The stories tackle the awkwardness of relationships and of existing in the world - something I feel like she's particularly good at. I think it's her clear unsentimental look at people's weakness, foibles, and inner lives that I always appreciate. She can be sardonic and hard in some ways, but also has an eye for the wry humour of life, and never mocks her characters. 

I thought all these stories were strong, with characters to draw you in, even though there was no strong thematic line to the collection. The settings are mainly in Finland but there a few which range across Europe, depending on the story. There are artists, mothers and daughters, old women who are still insisting on being a person, young men with existential crises, old schoolmates reuniting (with resulting cringe), and more. Each story was compelling but there were a couple that really stood out to me. 

The title story was fun, although light - if you've read Virginia Evan's hit The Correspondent you'll appreciate this little story alongside that one. "Party Games" follows a group of women who reunite when one of them finds out that their girls school is closing - it's a handful of their classmates having tea at one person's apartment and it is as awkward as you might imagine, with, as Jansson puts it, "do you remembers" taking over a lot of the conversation. But their girlhood likes and dislikes also reappear. So understandable! "Trip to the Riviera" follows a cantankerous older woman and her daughter, who've gone on vacation to a cheap pension on the Riviera, where they are definitely fish out of water, but the older woman is determined to be herself. 

"Emmelina" was the one that I was most drawn into. In this one, a strange young woman inherits a flat from a woman who has just died. The man living below her is having a crisis and befriends Emmelina, although she seems to be there just as a receptacle for all his angst. But when he finally decides to move on from his depression and face life again, Emmelina leaves, telling him she won't be back for a long time. She's uncanny and this story was a delight, with the side characters being some of the best parts. 

There are never heavy plots to these stories, they are more about people just living a bit, vignette style. I enjoy this a lot, and this collection delivered. If you like more contemplative stories looking at a slice of life, often without any real conclusions to be drawn, you'll like this too. 

Killing Stella

Killing Stella / Marlen Haushofer
trans. from the German by Shaun Whiteside
NY: New Directions, 2025, c1958.
88 p.

Another novella which I found through my library! This one was a must read for me since I read The Wall in 2024 and haven't stop thinking about it since. 

This is an earlier story by Haushofer, and it's both shorter and more traditional. So, not quite as much of an impact, but still a lot to think about in such a brief narrative. It feels like a story from the 50s, with its traditional roles of accepting  housewife to a rich, philandering man leading the storyline. 

But it also condemns this self-satisfied pampered life, highlighting the harms caused by self-absorbed rich people keeping their heads down to make their own lives easier. Still timely somehow. 

Anna, the housewife, is the narrator, and so we only have her view of things. She's married to Richard, and they have two children - Annette, who is very much like Richard, and Wolfgang, the son who Anna smothers with her displaced need for affection and companionship. 

Into this household comes Stella, an awkward and naive 19 year old, the daughter of Anna's old friend - actually a frenemy as Anna admits she really can't stand her. Stella needs a place to live while attending school and so moves into their spare room. Anna finds her mousy and retiring, and encourages her to dress more prettily, to become more attractive. And inevitably, Richard takes advantage of this (a question to the reader: does Anna know this will happen? Is she preparing Stella for Richard? As Anna is telling the tale, she of course sounds blameless).

But Richard's attentions are fickle and short-lived, and soon Stella is distraught, unable to say anything to anyone, since Anna is her only confidant. And shortly after that, Stella dies in a traffic accident. Of course it was an accident. 

The story is one long letter of justification, of Anna rewriting the events to explain and understand what happened. She does reflect a little and takes some of the blame, but it's clear throughout that she is defending herself and her decades long patterns of compliance and inaction. And there may be a nod or two the wider effects of both of these habits, in the German setting during the previous decade of wartime (the book was published in 1958). This narrative setup gives a sense of claustrophobia, Anna rarely mentioning anything outside her domestic sphere. 

It's interesting to read this and compare some of the author's themes to her later masterpiece The Wall. Anna being left alone emotionally even in the midst of a household is made more explicit in The Wall, with the main character a woman who is literally alone, the last person in the world as far as she knows. In any case, I did find this read had a lot to dig into and enjoyed reading more by this author. 

 

Dead Weight

Dead Weight / Hildur Knutsdottir
translated from the Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal
NY: Tor, 2026, c2025.
152 p.

This was a very unexpected read, a short novel that I found in my library system and grabbed because of WIT Month. It's an Icelandic story but an author who is new to me. 

Sometimes these random discoveries are just the thing! I was shocked and surprised by this one, all in the best ways. For something so short, it really packed a wallop, and the ending was on point. 

Unnur is a solitary woman, happy with her job and single life, but one day a cat appears in her apartment. She puts it out but it appears again. And as it turns out, it's a pregnant cat who gives birth to just one kitten in her bedroom. 

Unnur tries to do the right thing and find the owner, to return this cat who's decided that Unnur's home is a great place to settle into. She discovers that the owner is a young woman, Asta, who desperately wants her cat but thinks it would be safer with Unnur. Why? Asta's home life is unsettled, to say the least. 

Unnur doesn't have many friends, and Asta needs one - they start developing a kind of friendship, with Unnur feeling protective of both Asta and her cat. She starts to realize that Asta's boyfriend is a problem. And in her mind, problems need to be dealt with. 

I didn't predict this storyline, and was genuinely surprised by the plot as it progressed. I really liked the characters - the story is told from Unnur's perspective alone, we are inside her head for the whole book and so things surprise us as much as they do her. This has been called a "cathartic horror story" in publisher blurbs, and I think they got that spot on. The female rage driving the action, and Unnur's no-nonsense reactions feel believable and satisfying. I read this in one go - you can't stop, the story is plainly told but propulsive. It's definitely a one-sitting read. Recommended! 

Only a Little While Here

 

Only a Little While Here / Maria Ospina
trans. from the Spanish by Heather Cleary
NY: Scribner, 2026, c2023.
205 p.

I read Ospina's first collection of stories, Variations on the Body, in 2021 and was very impressed with it. So I was glad to see that this novel was available in time for this year's WIT Month reading. This is a quiet book, which I'd call a collection of linked short stories, more than a novel. But it was also a read that I appreciated and admired. 

It looks at the natural world, and how we are all one -- humans, bugs, birds, animals whether domestic or wild -- it's all one. It has a philosophical bent, a quiet narrative that is still honest and full of the natural violence of nature. Another element she investigates through this look at animal life is migration - what are borders, really, and who belongs where? Some of our characters are also migrants, and this plays into the overall shape of this book.

Each section opens with a selection of poems, excerpts etc from many writers who illustrate her points. The first, and where the title comes from, is a poem by the Aztec King Nezahualcóyotl.

“Truly do we live on earth?

Not forever on earth; only a little while here.

Although it be jade, it will be broken,

Although it be gold, it is crushed,

Although it be quetzal feather, it is torn asunder.

Not forever on earth; only a little while here.”

 

I've never seen this poem before, but it really hit me. It's such a beautiful way to describe the essence of our life here. This sets the tone for the rest of the book, in its sense that life is short and impermanent, and should be honoured and appreciated. 

The four sections of this book follow a migrating tanager, a beetle, a porcupine, and two dogs. And we see some of them as passing characters in the others' stories. The themes are carried through each story, with the characters slowly connecting for the reader, although the characters don't see it. But then that's kind of the point: we don't necessarily see the connections that exist in our daily lives, but we are all intimately connected, linked, a part of nature and everything we do is a part of the world. And as humans we often think that we are the only ones who live here and can do whatever we like without any thought of other lives. This book gently points that out and reminds us that we are also at the mercy of our planet. 

There is both melancholy and hope in many of the stories, and it's so beautiful -- you need to take this one slowly and savour it. If you love skilled writing and thoughtful reflection on life and impermanence, this is one for you. 

Sea Now: a Dutch disaster novel

 

Sea Now / Eva Meijer
trans. from the Dutch by Anne Thompson Melo
San Francisco, CA: Two Lines Press, 2025, c2022.
180 p.

I found this book in my library system -- I have not heard of it anywhere and was surprised by it. It's set in the Netherlands, where the sea has reached full tide but is not retreating. In fact it's getting higher and higher, by about a kilometer a day. 

This is downplayed for a while, until it becomes clear that Something is going on. The government reacts, finally, but too late to save low-lying areas. Internal refugees are everywhere, but then they have to keep moving -- some to Germany and France, some to family elsewhere, but the key is that they can not stay in the Netherlands. Even the big cities with all their art, culture, and population, are going to end up underwater. 

Despite this crisis event, the narrative itself is very calm and told quietly, almost bureaucratically, in the first half. The reactions of people vary, from those leaving immediately, to those who call themselves "The Remainers", and believe that the government info is all a conspiracy and they'll stay where they are. There is a group of young people who start up a protest group, "Sea Now!", which eventually peters out when the sea itself proves undeniably unstoppable. 

The second part of the book follows a few of the characters who decide to go back into the flooded areas to look for family members. They meet some Remainers who are living on tall rooftops and looking after themselves, and other stragglers on ships. They feel the strangeness of the sea and a city's infrastructure underwater. The new ocean seems to be a little more self-aware than before, too, with all sorts of odd and unusual things happening on this journey. 

It's a fascinating read, with an ending that I wasn't expecting. The rhythms of the story follow the relentless flow of the water, and the ending does too. There isn't a clear political message to the story -- to me it feels more like a quiet apocalypse, a change that humans aren't asked about or considered in. I couldn't stop reading it, and noted a few passages to copy out - the writing is reflective and yet slightly acerbic, a mix that caught me right away. This was a great accidental find, I would recommend it for the thoughtful reader who enjoys character and writing style; there is a lot to talk about here.