Taiwanese Voices Expanding into Global Markets

Kiki Liu

Taiwanese literature is capturing an intense spotlight at international book fairs as an ambitious new generation pushes stories onto the world stage. Driven to reach readers beyond Taiwan’s domestic market, authors Kiki Liu and Nakao Eki Pacidal stand out. Their deeply individualistic, experimental narratives exemplify the rich diversity and universal resonance successfully driving Taiwan straight into the mainstream international book trade.

Taipei-born and Brooklyn-based author Kiki Liu took a rebellious detour into novel writing after her PhD. Her debut novel, Girl in an Odd City, commands international attention by diving into a deeply compelling, localized plot.

Girl in an Odd City begins in the mid-1990s Taiwan, amid the first direct presidential election, before crossing continents to follow protagonist Koko’s family – unnerved by the instability of the new freedoms – leaving and trying their luck in Central America. When they inevitably fail and must return to rapidly-changing Taipei, where ghost tales and folk memory contrast with the ultra-modern, the story anchors itself in deeply resonant human conflict.

Deep down the book is universal, taking in class structures, loneliness and the power of storytelling. It is precisely this intense relatability that earned the novel its prestigious selection "as one of the 10 Books at the Berlinale, the annual showcase at the film festival of titles that are deemed to have potential for screen adaptations".

For Liu, physical displacement grants the creative freedom to examine her homeland clearly:

"Being away has been essential to my writing about home. I can't write about home when I'm at home. I feel suffocated by it, too close to see it clearly. I also think my imagination would have remained far more limited had I never left. Distance gives me permission to look and to imagine."

Nakao Eki Pacidal

Further enriching this global footprint is Nakao Eki Pacidal, an author of Indigenous Amis heritage writing from the isolated countryside of the Netherlands.

Her highly anticipated dual timeline novel set in the 1920s and today, Vow Between Banana Leaf and Tree, is rooted in the relationships between three friends, Banana Leaf (Lo'oh), Tree (Kilang) and Sasa and the historical Noko baseball team, yet presented as a work of fiction. To ensure international readers could grasp the nuances of her heritage, a storyline set in the future was thus added to it.

Pacidal deliberately subverts dominant cultural paradigms, refusing to let indigenous experiences be diluted by mainstream interpretations:

"I was driven to write it primarily by a desire to revisit our past from an Indigenous standpoint. I have long grown weary of seeing Taiwanese Han narratives supplant Indigenous perspectives with their own imaginings."

To bridge her heritage globally, she structurally adapts traditional Amis oral storytelling, noting that in her culture, "everything concerning the past concerns the present, thus telling a story about the past also tells a story about the present".

Fueled by a powerful combination of ambitious writers, these diverse creators are no longer confined by geography. By successfully transforming localized historical transitions, ghost tales, and indigenous oral traditions into universally appealing literature, they have driven Taiwan straight into the mainstream international book trade—cementing a vibrant, permanent footprint in the global market.

Source: Tom Tivan via Oven ready: Taiwanese authors are riding global momentum (https://www.thebookseller.com/features/oven-ready-taiwanese-authors-are-riding-global-momentum)