Taiwanese author Chi Ta-wei (紀大偉) has expressed surprise at the success that his 25-year-old LGBTQ+-themed novel received in the West after being translated into English in July.
Speaking from Taiwan about his novel The Membranes (膜) to a forum held by the New York Public Library on Thursday, Chi said that he was surprised twice: first, that the novel was picked up for translation after existing in Chinese since 1995 and, second, that there were a greater number of positive reviews for the translation than for the Chinese original.
“It might be fair to say that readers find The Membranes more wired to Western cultural references than to Chinese ones. That’s why I think the book seems more popular among English readers,” Chi said.
The Membranes is set in the late 21st century, when humanity has migrated to domes at the bottom of the sea to escape devastating climate change.
Portraying a dystopian world, the story follows its heroine’s quest for self-understanding, and its queer and trans themes have made it one of Taiwan’s most iconic LGBTQ+ works.
“The Membranes reveals the diversity and originality of contemporary speculative fiction in Chinese, exploring gender and sexuality, technological domination, and regimes of capital, all while applying an unflinching self-reflexivity to the reader’s own role,” wrote Columbia University Press, which published the translation.
Chi is a writer and professor who teaches LGBTQ+ studies and disability studies at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
The Membranes is his second book, completed when he was only 23 years old, and his first book translated into English.
Picked up by Columbia University Press, the novel was translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich, a professor of Chinese literature and media at Australian National University, who also joined the talk.
The novel was written more than two decades ago in the pre-Netflix era, when the success of writers was not defined by having their work adopted for the big screen.
Chi said that was why he did not want to resort to “compulsory visualization,” as writers and readers have the right to see characters and scenes as abstracts, leaving them free to exercise their imagination.
Heinrich was drawn to the book because of that, saying that he enjoyed the way Chi outlined features of the future, which “pack a punch,” and the autonomy Chi gives his readers to use their imagination without telling them how to think.
Chi said that readers might be surprised by the way his story has predicted much of what is happening today, such as the prevalence of social media and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think people in the 20th century were really smart. They knew what would happen today,” Chi said.
“Yesterday’s speculative fiction is tomorrow’s documentary,” Heinrich added.
The Membranes is part of a Columbia University Press series called “Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan,” which was launched in 1998.
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