Written by Sheng-mei Ma. This essay mobilises Cao Zhi’s seven-step poem as an allegorical lens on cross-Strait tensions, tracing how fraternal violence, de-personalised poetics, and classical Chinese cosmology illuminate Taiwan’s precarious geopolitics. Interweaving “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and “Journey to the West”, it critiques power, survival, and moral contamination, arguing that domination ultimately inscribes both victim and victor within enduring cycles of violence.
Written by Leona Chen. This article reflects on The Boy from Clearwater, a translated graphic memoir that intertwines Tsai Kun-lin’s life with the author’s own diasporic longing. Through vivid illustrations and intergenerational memory, the graphic novel becomes a conduit for Taiwanese American readers seeking connection, historical understanding, and ancestral intimacy across language, distance, and time.
Written by Chee-Hann Wu. This article shares the rise of Taiwanese BL comics, which increasingly portray ordinary, everyday same-sex relationships without much sexuality-related conflict. These works exemplify comforting, relatable stories that reflect a society where love is simply lived.
Written by I-Yun Lee. This article is an overview that traces Taiwanese comics from Japanese colonial to post-war Taiwan, the rise of rental comics, and the severe censorship that stifled creators from the 1960s to the 1980s. Shaped by colonial importation, market demand, and state control, Taiwan’s comic history emerges as a story of negotiation and constraint.
Written by Yun-Pu Tu. This article reflects on the “Otherwise Literature: Against the Mainstream” panel, a collaboration between NATSA and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, which explored how storytelling bridges cultures and challenges dominant narratives. Featuring writers and translators including Shawna Yang Ryan, Lya Shaffer Osborn, and Yung-ta Chien, the event highlighted the power of words and storytelling to connect communities and imagine Taiwan otherwise.
Written by Naomi Sím. The article introduces “rosettation,” a method of translating between minoritised languages like Tâigí and Gaelic via dominant ones. The Tâigael project explores linguistic solidarity, reader responses, and political tensions. Rosettation emerges as both a pragmatic strategy and a literary experiment, which enables new forms of intercultural dialogue despite inherent compromises.
