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Taiwan

The covers of the books featured in the list

The Best Books of 2022—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2023

By Words Without Borders

Our staff, contributors, and board members share their favorite translated books of the year and the titles they’re looking forward to in 2023.

A dark door cracked open to reveal bright red light

Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash

Yun-Fan: Singing the Variety of Queer Life

By Wanning Chen

“When I was twenty-three, I met my first girlfriend, who then went off with a man after just four months—and eventually married him.”

Translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang

Solo Dance

From that day on, her memories of Danchen were frozen.

Translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce

The Park Bench

By Sandrine Kao

But it’s not surprising—with everything you hear on the news, how can anyone be expected to think well of the Chinese?

Translated from French by Jane Roffe

A Pun, an Idiom, and an Expletive Walk into a Bar: International Humor

By Susan Harris

When we think of translating humor, we may think in terms of capturing jokes.

Literary Heroes: Women Writers from Taiwan

By Jeremy Tiang

Taiwanese women have proved adept at carving out spaces for themselves.

From “The March of Time”

“Whatever kind of person you were, that’s the kind of ghost you’ll be.”

Translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang

Multilingual

From “Notes of a Crocodile”

“What if we ran out of things to talk about?”

Translated from Chinese by Bonnie Huie

From “Qibla”

By Shen Wan-ting

“I’m sorry. I’ll change your pants right away.”

Translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang

Multilingual

From “The Ringing of the Rain has a Forgiving Grace”

I am willing to carve you a ten-second slice of winter.

Translated from Chinese by Steve Bradbury

Multilingual

We Deliver More Than We Promise

I’m the pig, I said, you’re just an idiot

Translated from Chinese by Steve Bradbury

Wedding in Autumn

By Shih Chiung-Yu

Even when she spoke, she mumbled, like her voice was stuck in her throat.

Translated from Chinese by Darryl Sterk

A Faun’s Afternoon

The hand of the pocket watch winds on with a sound like mocking laughter.

Translated from Chinese by Dave Haysom

Multilingual

The Queer Issue V: Impressions from a Passing Train

By Rohan Kamicheril

The appeal of the Queer Issue is in seeing that great ambition writ small, in discovering the swarm of details and experience that cohere into the big picture of world writing.

from “Last Words from Montmartre”

Dusk in the Latin Quarter was like a fairy tale or a love poem, like a Klimt mosaic, like glowing, rose-colored clouds reaching toward the heavens.

Translated from Chinese by Ari Larissa Heinrich

Very Cheesy and Also Rather Blah

By Jing Xianghai

 behind us a lake brimmed with the noise of crows

Translated from Chinese by Lee Yew Leong

Multilingual

A History of Condo Sales

And so our company’s gigantic neon sign escapes your sight, perched atop an eighteen-story condominium.

Translated from Chinese by Kevin T.S. Tang

February 2010 Worth Ten Thousand Words Part Iv International Graphic Novels From King Ma Has Come Wei Tsung Cheng Page Thumbnail

From “King-Ma Has Come”

By Wei Tsung-cheng

King-Ma Has Come (Ma Huang Jiang Lin) is a product of the hugely popular kuso culture in Asia. Also known as egao in Mandarin Chinese, the genre is known for its campy humor and outrageous parodies of…

Translated from Chinese by Nancy Tsai

Jingzhen, Taiwan, 1978

We're dead if we can't sell the houses, not to mention that we'd look like complete losers.

Translated from Chinese by Nancy Tsai

On the Island

That fire ball, with wide open eyes / is hanging above our heads, burning hot

Translated from Chinese by Chang Fen-ling

Furniture Music

I draw the curtains and sleep / I wake inside the room

Translated from Chinese by Chang Fen-ling