Writers, publishers and cultural glitterati gathered at the Sheraton Hotel in Taipei yesterday to attend the 36th Golden Tripod Awards. The annual event honors professionals in the nation’s publishing industry to highlight their achievements.
This year, 120 nominees in 21 categories were drawn from 1,115 entries after three rounds of jury meetings.
The biggest winner was Ink Publishing (印刻文學生活誌), which garnered top honors in five categories, including the Best Literary and Arts Magazine, Best Column Writing and Best Art Design.
In the hotly contested category of Best Literary Book Award, four out of the 10 contenders were honored for their writing. Among them, documentary filmmaker, gay activist and writer Mickey Chen (陳俊志) was the only winner who attended the ceremony. His winning book, Taipei Father, New York Mother (台北爸爸,紐約媽媽), tells of Chen’s family history and personal ordeals and is regarded as a work of diaspora literature that sheds light on the collective experience of 1970s Taiwan.
“Though the simplified-Chinese version suffers from quite a few cuts, the book has finally broken through China’s censorship and hit Chinese bookshelves this month,” Chen said. “The homosexual theme remains intact, and I hope we will start a revolution [in China].”
Commies, Money and Milkfish (阿共、銀彈、虱目魚) was named the Best Magazine Features Story. Published by Business Weekly, the story is the culmination of more than a year of research and field studies by three journalists, Liu Pei-hsiu (劉佩修), Lai Ning-ning (賴寧寧) and Wu He-mao (吳和懋), who traced what had become of a promising business deal made by Chinese officials in Syuejia (學甲), Greater Tainan.
Celebrated photographer Shen Chao-liang (沈昭良) won in the Best Magazine Photography category for his series of photographs of portable cabaret stages in Rhythms Monthly (經典雜誌). When receiving the trophy, Shen said he hoped that magazines could show greater acceptance of long photographic series that “enrich life.”
The Special Contribution Award went to Diane Ying (殷允芃), founder of Commonwealth Magazine Group, and Linden Lin (林載爵), publisher of Linking Publishing Co.
Lin urged the government to promote Taiwan’s literary and non-literary works throughout the world and support the industry’s transition from printed to digital media.
He said that one important thing local publishers should think about is how to enter Chinese-language markets in China, Southeast Asia and North America.
“For the past 60 years, Taiwan’s publishing industry has gone through an exciting time, bearing witness to and taking part in the social and political development of the country,” the 61-year-old historian and publisher said. “Someone should keep a record of what has happened, and I hope I will be that person. I will truly deserve this award once I complete the work.”
Lin was awarded France’s Medal of Arts and Letters last year and is the first Taiwanese publisher to receive that honor.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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