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Production begins on TV show based on Lu novel

Filming of a TV program adapted from a novel written by Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) began yesterday, with Lu setting the goal of promoting it to a global audience.

Lu has agreed to let one of her novels, These Three Women, be made into a TV program in the hope that it can help men better understand women.

The production company is planning to make 30 episodes and expand the scope to cover the three main characters and their parents and children.

Lu’s novel, written while she was in prison for her involvement in the Kaohsiung Incident, is about the contrasting lives of three women.

One gets married and moves to the US. To her friends it seems as if she has everything, but she remains dogged by a strong sense of loss. Another character is a university teacher, who despite being single leads a very colorful life. The third woman is a widow, who reminisces about the good old days with her late husband who she loved dearly — but also abhorred.

Lu was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the then Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration on charges of “abetting a violent rebellion” for a 20-minute speech she made on the evening of the Kaohsiung Incident.

The incident, which took place in December 1979, involved a state crackdown on an anti-government rally organized by Formosa Magazine, of which Lu was vice president in the 1970s.

Lu has published 13 books, including two novels she wrote during her imprisonment.

Attending the announcement of filming at the Taiwan Storyland in downtown Taipei yesterday afternoon, Lu said that the story was not entirely about her but about women and men. For her, the book was therapeutic to her soul, which was tormented during the 150 days of interrogation she underwent.

The reason that she wrote novels and not political articles was because she was not allowed to read books or watch television during her imprisonment, but she could let her imagination run wild. The story was made up of the many stories she heard from a number of female friends.

Lu said that some of the manuscript was written on toilet paper because it was the only thing that did not need examination after use in jail.

With NT$15 million (US$500,000) in funding from the Government Information Office, Lu said she believed the program would be a success and hoped it would go global, especially in the expatriate community abroad or in the country’s diplomatic allies in Central and Southern America.
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