| Remains of Life Contributor(s): Berry, Michael (Translator), Wu He, Wu (Author) |
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ISBN: 0231166001 ISBN-13: 9780231166003 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $99.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 2017 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 2016037969 |
| Series: Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 5.4" W x 8.6" (1.20 lbs) 352 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: On October 27, 1930, during a sports meet at Musha Elementary School on an aboriginal reservation in the mountains of Taiwan, a bloody uprising occurred unlike anything Japan had experienced in its colonial history. Before noon, the Atayal tribe had slain one hundred and thirty-four Japanese in a headhunting ritual. The Japanese responded with a militia of three thousand, heavy artillery, airplanes, and internationally banned poisonous gas, bringing the tribe to the brink of genocide. Nearly seventy years later, Chen Guocheng, a writer known as Wu He, or "Dancing Crane," investigated the Musha Incident to search for any survivors and their descendants. Remains of Life, a milestone of Chinese experimental literature, is a fictionalized account of the writer's experiences among the people who live their lives in the aftermath of this history. Written in a stream-of-consciousness style, it contains no paragraph breaks and only a handful of sentences. Shifting among observations about the people the author meets, philosophical musings, and fantastical leaps of imagination, Remains of Life is a powerful literary reckoning with one of the darkest chapters in Taiwan's colonial history. |
Contributor Bio(s): Berry, Michael: - Michael Berry is professor of Chinese Literature at UCLA. He is the author of A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film (Columbia University Press, 2011) and Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (Columbia University Press, 2005). |