Australian author Bernard Cohen, the first foreign artist invited to Taipei under the city government's "artists in residence" program, arrived in Taipei on Wednesday, opening a window to international literature for Taiwan.
Introducing Cohen to Taipei citizens, Lung Ying-tai (
Lung said that under the "artists in residence" program, more than 10 writers and artists from abroad will be invited to Taipei to accelerate cultural exchanges between Taipei citizens and the artists during their residence period.
Among those on the invitation list is Chinese dissident novelist-playwright Gao Xingjian (
The 60-year-old Gao, who has lived in self-exile in France over the past 12 years, was previously scheduled to visit Taipei as an artist in residence for three months beginning at the end of this October.
Gao, who is a personal acquaintance of Lung, was forced to reschedule his Taipei visit after he won the Nobel prize for literature, Lung said.
Cohen, who has made London his home for the past two years, is now a coordinator and writer with HOME Web site project for the trAce online writing community and the New Perspectives Theater Group.
A prolific writer, Cohen, 37, was selected as one of the most promising young writers in Australia by the Sydney Morning Herald. Among his most famous writings are Blindman's Hat, a novel that won the 1998 Australian/Vogel Award, and the novel Snowdome.
Once a co-editor of Editions Review, the national magazine of books and writing in Australia, Cohen has also worked as a broadcast program producer in Australia and a writer in residence at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday declared emergency martial law, accusing the opposition of being “anti-state forces intent on overthrowing the regime” amid parliamentary wrangling over a budget bill. “To safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements plundering people’s freedom and happiness, I hereby declare emergency martial law,” Yoon said in a live televised address to the nation. “With no regard for the livelihoods of the people, the opposition party has paralysed governance solely for the sake of impeachments, special investigations, and shielding their leader from justice,” he
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Five flights have been arranged to help nearly 2,000 Taiwanese tourists return home from Okinawa after being stranded due to cruise ship maintenance issues, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced yesterday. China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) have arranged five flights with a total of 748 additional seats to transport 1,857 passengers from the MSC Bellissima back to Taiwan, the ministry said. The flights have been scheduled for yesterday and today by the Civil Aviation Administration, with the cruise operator covering all associated costs. The MSC Bellissima, carrying 4,341 passengers, departed from Keelung on Wednesday last week for Okinawa,
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