Contemporary Taiwanese writer Li Ang (李昂), author of the critically acclaimed novella "The Butcher's Wife (殺夫),” will return to New York on Jan. 20 to unveil the English translation of her 1991 bestseller, "The Lost Garden (迷園).”
"The Lost Garden” is Li Ang's first full-length novel and it is offered in three parts. It is the economic miracle of the 1970s, and the heroine and her gentry family live in a lavish microcosm complete with a lotus garden full of indigenous flora, but their lives are rooted in the island's colonial past and overshadowed by her father's arrest as an intellectual dissident by the Nationalist forces.
Her love interest, on the other hand, represents the aggression and hedonism that have encapsulated "New Taiwan.” The interplay of power, wealth, and romance between a genteel lady and a real estate tycoon, however, pales when conflicts in cultural and sexual identity run deep.
The English edition of "The Lost Garden” was translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin (林麗君) and released by Columbia University Press in November 2015. Goldblatt, Li's primary translator in English, also works with Hwang Chun-ming (黃春明), Chu Tien-wen (朱天文), and China's Mo Yan (莫言).
Li, Goldblatt, and Lin will meet with the public on Jan. 20 at Columbia University. The open forum will also introduce Susan Yu (游淑靜), director of the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, and Jennifer Crewe, director of the Columbia University Press.
‘Li Ang and her Lost Garden'
- Date: Jan. 20, 2016
- Venue: C.V. Starr East Asian Library
- Location: Columbia University
- Address: 535 West 114th St. New York, NY 10027
- Introduction, Remarks, Q&A: 4pm - 5.20pm
- Book Signing: 5.20pm - 6.30pm
Read more about the novelist here.