If a book launch is held on Sunday by the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs and the Taipei City Archive for former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) memoir, he would probably attend, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Chen announced on Facebook that his first memoir, entitled Hsin yung ge wu yu (新勇哥物語, Persisting: Chen Shui-bian’s Oral Memoir) would be published soon.
In the book, Chen says that when he was released from prison on medical parole on Jan. 5, 2015, his neurologist Chen Shun-sheng (陳順勝) was worried that his encephalopathy would cause memory loss, and the former president would not be able to complete a presidential oral history.
The neurologist asked Ko, who had been the convener of the former president’s medical team, to ask the Taipei City Archive to assist him in conducting the oral history interviews, Chen Shui-bian wrote.
Chen Shui-bian is hoping to attend an autograph session on May 9 for the book at the Ketagalan Foundation in Taipei to mark the 14th anniversary of the institution he found to train people interested in political careers and deepen Taiwan’s democracy.
Under the terms of his parole, the former president is required to apply to prison authorities for approval to attend outside activities, and people close to him said he is planning to do so.
Asked by reporters if he would attend the book launch, Ko said he wanted to clarify that when he was a member of Chen Shui-bian’s personal medical team, he knew that former leader’s frontal lobes had begun to shrink, so that when he became mayor he asked the Cultural Affairs Department to send people to interview Chen Shui-bian to help preserve history.
“My thought is that whether you like it or not, whatever happened on this island is part of its history, so the oral history was conducted for this reason,” Ko said.
The interviews had been completed some time ago, but some issues had delayed publication of the memoir, Ko said.
Now that the foundation is publishing the book, he asked the department to make sure the book launch event does not contravene the former president’s medical parole rules, Ko said.
If the launch can be held, he has no reason not to attend, he added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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