Taiwanese author, academic and translator Lin Wen-yue (林文月) passed away in the US on Friday morning, the Taipei Chinese Center of PEN International said in a statement on Facebook yesterday.
She was 89.
Lin, who was born on Sept. 5, 1933, in Shanghai and moved to Taiwan when she was about 14, dedicated her life to literary research, translation, writing and art, the center said.
Photo courtesy of Trend Education Foundation
She was an expert in Chinese “six dynasties” literature and Sino-Japanese comparative literary research, said the center, of which Lin was a member.
She translated important works of Japanese literature, including The Tale of Genji (circa 11th century), often described as the world’s first novel, as well as The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (circa 11th century).
Her writing is considered a model of contemporary Chinese prose, while her narratives won several awards and were selected as teaching materials in text books for junior and senior high schools, the statement said.
For example, A Year in Kyoto (京都一年) and Raining in Florence (翡冷翠在下雨), are part of school curricula, it said.
“Her writing is clear and smooth, and her style rich,” author Pai Hsien-yung (白先勇) once said.
Yang Tsung-han (楊宗翰), an assistant professor in the Department of Chinese Literature at Tamkang University and the center’s secretary-general, said that one of Lin’s prose works, A Lifetime in Chinese Literature, inspired “everyone who studies Chinese literature.”
While some people would call Chinese literature a useless subject, Lin inspired those who study in the field to find their own place in the world, Yang said.
Lin earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chinese literature at National Taiwan University (NTU), and started her teaching career at NTU while studying for her master’s in 1958.
In 1969, she studied at Kyoto University’s Institute for Research in Humanities as a foreign researcher for a year.
Lin retired from NTU in 1993 and moved to the US. She continued to work in the field of literature, translation, writing and art.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS