Writer Lee Wang-tai (李旺台) received an honorable mention for the third time at yesterday’s Historical Novel Award ceremony, for his biographical stories about Japanese colonial-era Hakka physician Chhi Pong-hin (徐傍興).
The biennial award ceremony, held by the New Taiwan Peace Foundation, was launched in 2017.
Foundation executive director Wang Mei-hsiu (王美琇), who founded the awards, said she hoped that they would encourage people to write on historical topics related to Taiwan and “dig up all sorts of Taiwanese stories that have long been buried.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Writers are invited to submit short stories of at least 10,000 words, she said.
Lee said: “I focused on stories from the life of Dr Chhi. I am really passionate about the Taiwanese elite from that era.”
“Japan was handing over sovereignty to China. That was when the historical foundation of Taiwanese culture was thoroughly altered,” he said.
Competition judge Sung Tse-lai (宋澤萊) said Lee did an “outstanding job” of capturing the personality and legacy of the doctor.
“You could understand from this biography how Chhi devoted himself to his native land. You could understand how his Hakka identity informed his outlook, and how Taiwanese of the time felt toward the Japanese,” Sung said.
However, Sung said that two the problems with Lee’s biography were that it altered historical fact, and that history served only as the stories’ backdrop, and not their focus.
Judge Lee Min-yung (李敏勇) said it was regretful that over the past few years only one top prize had been conferred.
“A lot of the entrants this year had a strong short-story element to them, but I would like to see the historical element be the premise from which the short story develops,” he said.
During his opening remarks at the ceremony, foundation chairman Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) said that a historical novel is different from a history textbook — it should let readers reflect on the past and share touching stories from history.
“Only in knowing our past can we know the future. I hope that by sharing facts about the past, we can give Taiwanese new hope,” Koo said.
At the same event, Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) said that historical novels are valuable in that they enable everyday people to access complex historical topics.
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