Wintry Night (Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan)
by Qiao Li
Category: Literary Criticism

An epic spanning more than half a century of Taiwan's history, this ambitious and lyrical novel traces the fortunes of the Pengs, a family of Hakka Chinese settlers, across three generations from the 1890s, just before Taiwan was ceded to Japan as a result of the Sino-Japanese war, through World War II. Li Qiao vividly records the adventures and struggles of these pioneers against myriad natural and man-made trials as they and hundreds of thousands of other Chinese immigrants colonize Taiwan, establishing relationships with the aboriginal peoples and working to redefine their own ethnic and political identities. This carefully researched work of fiction draws upon the author's own experiences and family history, as well as oral and written records of the era. Originally published in Chinese as a trilogy, Wintry Night is abridged for English-speaking readers in this newly translated edition, its first appearance in the English-speaking world. The novel was well received in Taiwan as an honest - and influential - re-creation of the cultural and historical dynamics of Taiwan over the past century.