台灣文學英譯叢刊（No. 49）：台灣新時代女性小說專輯

【About the Editors】

 

Kuo-ch'ing Tu, born in Taichung, Taiwan. His research interests include Chinese literature, Chinese poetics and literary theories, comparative literature East and West, and world literatures of Chinese (Shi-Hua wenxue). He is the author of numerous books of poetry in Chinese, as well as translator of English, Japanese, and French works into Chinese.

 

Terence Russell is Senior Scholar in the Asian Studies Center at the University of Manitoba. He has an interest in contemporary literature in Chinese, especially the literature of Taiwan's Indigenous people. Dr. Russell has been a regular contributor to Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series, and was the guest editor of Issue 24 on Taiwan Indigenous myths and oral literature.

 

Lee Kuei Yun is currently a professor in the Institute of Taiwan Literature at National Tsing Hua University and the vice-chairman of the Taiwan Literature Society. She is the author of academic treatises such as Poetry and Its Symbols, Between Structure and Symbols, Misty: Qingming and Flow, and Dialogue with Poetry, as well as a collection of poems called Woman’s Flow. She has won the Taipei Literature Award New Poetry Jury Award, Taichung County Literature Award New Poetry Award, Nanying Literature Award “Nanying New Talent Award,” Taiwan Literature Award Prose Award, and the Tsinghua University Outstanding Teaching Award, etc.

 

【About the Translators】

 

John Balcom is Professor Emeritus at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. His most recent translation is The All-Seeing Eye: Collected Poems by Shang Qin, published by Cambria Press.

 

Yingtsih Hwang is a poetry blogger and independent translatorbased in Monterey, California.

 

Karmia Chan Olutade is a Chinese Canadian literary translator and creative and localization specialist in the education-technology industry. She graduated with a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Stanford University, where she studied under poets Eavan Boland and Nobel laureate Louise Gluck. Olutade served as a managing editor of Pathlight Magazine (People’s Literature Publishing), and has published multiple volumes of original and poetry in translation through Foreign Language Press, Guomai, Shanghai Literature, among others. She resides with her family in Southern California.

 

Aoife Cantrill is a third year PhD student at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral thesis explores the role of translators in shaping narratives of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan through the translation of women’s fiction and literary essays. Outside her doctoral work, she has recently published on the role of paratext in Yan Lianke’s fiction.

 

Erin Y. Huang is an assistant professor of East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar and comparatist specializing in critical theory, Marxist geography, postcolonial studies, feminist theory, cinema and media studies, and Sinophone Asia. She is the author of Urban Horror: Neoliberal Post-Socialism and the Limits of Visibility (Duke University Press, 2020). Her second book project, Islands of Capital: The Aesthetic Life of Zones in Sino-Capitalism, introduces an archipelagic and oceanic approach to continental China that considers the technologies of the ocean, zoning and artificial islanding, and infrastructural expansion from the twentieth century to the present.

 

Billy Beswick is a doctoral student in Chinese culture studies at the University of Oxford. In his research, he uses analyses of film,art, and literature to think about the way national-boundaries are drawn through figurations of “internal” ethnic difference in Taiwan and mainland China, and how this in turn affects minority and indigenous self-representation.

 

Hu Ying is Professor of modern Chinese literature at UC Irvine.Her publications include Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China (Stanford, 2000), Burying Autumn: Poetry, Friendship and Loss (Harvard, 2015), and Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women’s Biography in Chinese History (co-edited, UC Press, 2006). She enjoys translating fiction and has tried her hand at prose, poetry,and plays as well. Her recent translation forays include works by Lu Xun, Xue Yiwei, and Wang Anyi.

 

「台灣新時代女性小說專輯」卷頭語

 

杜國清（美國聖塔芭芭拉加州大學東亞語言文化研究系教授）

 

台灣文學中的女作家，人數不在少數，作品斐然可觀。本《叢刊》早在2002年7月和2003年1月，就出版〈台灣女性文學〉兩集（#11#12）；選譯的文章包括短評、散文、小説、新詩和研究論文。其中小説有9篇（作者為：葉石濤、鄭清文、蘇偉貞、朱天心、楊千鶴、呂秀蓮、黃娟、季季）；短評3篇；散文6篇；新詩15篇；研究論文4篇。詳細篇目，請參照《叢刊》11及12集。

 

我在《叢刊》第11集的〈卷頭語〉中説明，台灣婦女運動開始於七〇年代，倡導者是前副總統吕秀蓮，而由李元貞教授在八〇年代繼續推展。八〇年代台灣文壇出現一批年輕的女性作家，如李昂、施叔青、蕭颯、蕭麗红、袁瓊瓊、廖輝英、朱天文、朱天心等，確立了女作家的地位。她們的作品大多描述女性在婚姻、家庭、與傳統社會中的困境。1987年解嚴以後，台灣社會言論自由，意識形態多元化，政治論述與情慾書寫不再是禁忌的題材而大行其道。在八〇年代初，李昂就以長篇小說《殺夫》（1983）這種題材震撼文壇。1991年出版的《迷園》從性別意識的角度，切入男女情慾和現實意識的主題，開創處理國族

認同、意識形態、族群記憶等具有時代性的政治議題，而將女性文學推向一個新的里程碑。《迷園》的英譯本（Lost Garden），2016年哥大出版社出版，譯者為林麗君教授。八〇年代後期解嚴後，在女作家的故事中，性別認同和政治認同往往交叉重疊，成為後殖民文學和女性主義論述中的常見的表現方式：殖民與反殖民、父權與女性、強勢與弱勢、暴力與對抗等的對立關係。到了九〇年代進入後現代，女性文學與女性主義論述開始多元探索，包括關於特殊癖性、同志小説、女同性情慾、或酷兒書寫的小説和論文，而以性別身份與男女慾望為題材的女作家也陸續發聲。

 

一如上述，我們大致了解女性主義思潮在台灣的流向和發展，以及台灣女性作家在文壇上的表現和聲量。由於《叢刊》選譯的文章，以文學作品爲主，我們希望作品能夠反映出女性觀點的思維和感受。如今，我們再出版這集「台灣新時代女性小說專輯」，前後兩個世代，相隔二十年，可以看出前後世代性別書寫的差異，以及解嚴以後的社會變遷、女性文學題材和風格的遞變。當代台灣女性作家的作品，落實於台灣的社會生活經驗，反映出歷史發展的脈絡和闡發台灣女性文學的特色。這些作品為女人身體發聲，詮釋女人自身的内心感受，展現當代台灣女性文學獨特的音色和風采。

 

《台灣新世代女性小説》這一專輯，我們特地請台灣清華大學台灣文學研究所李癸雲教授擔任客座編輯，負責選稿。因受篇幅的限制，只選11位女性小説家的短篇小説12篇，作者都是1970年以後出生、其作品發表於2000年以後，反映出二十一世紀台灣社會的變動現象和新世代的精神樣貌。同時我們請李教授撰寫一篇導輪，題爲〈創傷．情慾．時代女聲〉，除了簡述11位作家及其作品之外，還勾勒出其中「隱隱浮現某些書寫特徵，關於內在創傷、女性意識、身體情慾、人與貓的互喻、日常生活等」。本輯導論〈創傷．情慾．時代女聲〉中所特別强調的是，這些作品所書寫的情慾、流露出女性意識底層所隱含的個人私密經驗的内在創傷，而正視創傷，「藉此梳理出形貌清晰的女性肌理，迴盪出『時代女聲』的特殊音色」，成爲新世代台灣女性小説的一大特徵。

 

關於女性情慾的創傷的揭露，沒有比2017年轟動台灣社會的年輕女作家林奕含的自縊事件更令人傷痛的了。林奕含生於1991年，是屬於這一專輯女性作家世代的後起之秀。2017年2月初，出版了唯一的長篇小説《房思琪的初戀樂園》。該書敘述13歲的少女房思琪被50歲的補習班名師李國華誘姦的故事。長達五年的性關係，引發憂鬱症，其間，房思琪内心的痛苦，自我内化，説服自己努力去「愛上」老師，終於精神崩潰。雖是處女作，文筆優雅、隱喻精巧，心理描寫細緻，頗有藝術風格。小説正文前的扉頁，標示「獻給『等待天使的妹妹』」和「改編自真人真事」，可見作者是透過小説的形式，書寫親身的經歷，揭發對性暴力加給受害者的創傷。林奕含的小説指陳傷口，一如〈導論〉所指出的，「作家透過尖銳而精準的描述，讓內在創傷浮現，並整理命名」，「散發出強烈的內在性，正面逼視各式情慾。」林奕含的創傷遭遇和情慾書寫，不幸導致她在這唯一的一本小説出版之後兩個多月，於2017年4月27日，她選擇在家中上吊自絕，時年26歲。她的悲劇生命和絕望的人生命運，引人同情，我曾寫了一首詩，悼念她的人生境遇，終於不得不正面逼視慾情和生命的最後抉擇。引述如下，或可作爲呼應本集的主題、書寫情慾與創傷的一個注脚。

 

少女的祈禱—天上差樂不苦也，悼林奕含

 

玷污之後 她病了

魔 在她心上糾纏

絞出一點一滴的血

顫落在稿紙上 字字

痛苦的血色 渲染在

她的眼前 暗夜哭泣

她的人生 如何渡過

這條河 如此渾噩

她只能把自己關在房間裡

看書 思索 向魔祈求

祈求放手 讓她真的活著

活像別的女孩那麼快樂

夢魘的告白 揭露傷痛真相：

已經插入的 不會被抽出來！

那噴出的血 頁頁 鬱悒的墨跡

寫出少女的才情 氣質 哀憐

以及她的人生 僅剩的尊嚴

煽情成癮 偽善的讀者喲

要我如何訴說 我小時候

愛上強暴我的老師！

她的寫作 成為驅魔的藝術

希望從淫邪的污泥中 自拔出來

將心中情慾的穢氣 一點一滴排出

將身上青春的魔障 一滴一字驅除

啊啊 房思琪的初戀樂園

集中營的倖存者 憂鬱一來

她向思念的天使 再三祈禱

神啊 求您帶我到另一個世界

我活著的痛苦 請了解

讓我將人性的虛偽 醜惡 殘虐

還給人間 讓我 真正的我

早日解脫 我這一生的魔咒……

她給自己 打了一個完美的繩結

伸出秀長的脖子 仰望天國

那時 純善真愛的安琪兒

探出雲端 帶著微笑

向她 殷殷招手

（05-04-2017）

 

林奕含（1991-2017），才女作家，臺南人。高中二年級起，罹患憂鬱症。2017年2月初，出版處女作長篇小說《房思琪的初戀樂園》。三個月之後，4月27日，林奕含在家中自縊輕生，年僅26歲。題目「少女的祈禱」，波蘭韶華早逝女鋼琴家巴達潔芙思嘉（1834-1861）唯一的傳世名作。題詞引自李商隱撰「李昌吉小傳（790-816）」：「帝成白玉樓，立召君為記，天上差樂不苦也。」李賀得年也僅26歲。

 

歸根結柢，創傷與情慾書寫，是台灣女性文學的兩大主題。有趣的是，本輯所選譯的12篇小説中，有三篇的題目與貓有關：黃麗群的〈貓病〉、胡淑雯的〈浮血貓〉、和言叔夏的〈妻子的貓〉。貓與藝術家或小説家的關聯，其來有自。美國作家和藝術文化記者納思塔西（Alison Nastasi）出版了兩本暢銷書，《藝術家與他們的貓》（Artists and Their Cats, 2015）和《作家與他們的貓》（Writers and Their Cats, 2018），收集了多名作家與藝術家和貓咪的可愛故事。

 

關於作家與貓，夏目漱石的《我是貓》和老舎的《貓城記》享譽文壇不用説了，馬克吐溫、愛倫坡、村上春樹、波特萊爾，以及其他許多名作家或藝術家其實都是貓痴、甚至是貓奴。貓在日常生活中，或是家居寂寞的伴侶，或是孤獨心靈的慰藉，或是創作靈感的泉源。波特萊爾的《惡之華》中就有三首寫貓的詩（#34，#51，#66）。對波特萊爾而言，貓是女人的化身、情慾的權現，當他寫出：

 

來，美麗的貓，來我愛戀的心上，

　把妳腳上銳利的爪隱藏，

讓我沉浸在妳美麗的眼眸中

　映出金屬與瑪瑙的亮光。

當我的手指，從容不迫地愛撫，

　妳的頭和那彈性的背脊，

當我的手陶然感到興奮的滿足，

　一觸及妳那帶電的嬌軀，

我就幻見我的女人，她的眼神，

　和妳一樣，可愛的動物，

深邃冷澈，有如鏢槍尖銳刺人；

　

從她的腳尖到她的頭部，

　一種微妙的氣色，危險的暗香，

在她褐色身旁漂浮蕩漾。

 

現實的貓，不論是「可愛的」、「神秘的」、「純潔的」、或是「奇特的」，在詩人的想象和審美感受中，都升華為虹影，幻化成慾望的氛圍，讓他「高唱精神和各個感官的歡狂」。

 

最後，這一專輯的完成，我們不能不特別感謝作者的同意授權、譯者和編輯團隊的努力和合作，以及李教授的研究助理戴均霖與作者的聯繫和協調。客座編輯李癸雲教授的選文和導論，為主題的闡發提供完整的輪廓。感謝古芃教授的熱心推薦和聯繫譯者；除了為本叢刊貢獻多年的翻譯老手陶忘機和黃瑛姿之外，本集的譯者中有幾位新世代的新面孔，反映出後起之秀世代交替的時候到了；歡迎加入我們的翻譯團隊。感謝最近獲得臺大臺文所博士學位的涂書瑋，幫忙核閱12篇小説譯稿的原文，並提供參考意見。英文編輯羅德仁教授和編審Fred Edwards審定譯稿，力求英文的可讀性，尤其是羅教授，作為叢刊主編之一，從中協調整合，勞苦功高，功不可沒。臺大出版中心編輯嚴嘉雲在編務工作上的求全用心和努力，才使這一集的出書任務能夠順利完成，在此深致感謝。

 

本集的封面，由臺大出版中心的美編精心設計。在女作家運思的調色板上，女性、貓咪和慾望是絞纏密織在一起的，因此，在構圖上，以潔白的女性形象凸顯這一專輯的主題，同時投射出兩隻貓的幻影，一前一後，一深一白。生活在變動不居的台灣土地上，創傷的心情滲透出淡紫的憂鬱，作爲底色，而深色的貓代表過去不堪的回憶，白色代表重生和未來的希望。所有的創作，都是特定時間和空間的產物。回憶意味著曾經發生過的，未來充滿無限的想像，而當下的創作是爲了療傷，放下過去，迎向未來。一如艾略特所説的，「時間現在與時間過去/二者或許存在於時間未來，/而時間未來包含在時間過去中。」如果時

間過去意味著傳統，所有的創作品，立足於當下的時空，既存在於未來，也終將歸入傳統。我們希望這些台灣新世代女性作家的作品，能夠帶給讀者在「當代」和「傳統」之間的一點連結。

 

本叢刊持續出版，即將邁進第25年，推出第五十集。我們希望能有新一世代的學者和譯者參與接棒，貢獻所能，繼續為推展台灣文學長遠的英譯工程，為開拓台灣文學研究的國際空間，再接再厲，繼續努力。

 

Foreword to the Special Issue on New Generation Women’s Fiction from Taiwan

 

Kuo-ch’ing Tu

 

Taiwan is home to an impressive number of women authors who are producing remarkable work. Very early on, in July of 2002 and January of 2003, this journal published Women’sLiterature in Taiwan in two issues (#11 and #12). These issues included short critical pieces, prose, fiction, new poetry, and research essays. There were nine short stories (by authors Yeh Shiht’ao, Tzeng Ching-wen, Su Wei-chen, Chu Tien-hsin, Yang Chienhe, Lü Hsiu-lien, Hwang Chuan and Chi Chi); three short critiques; six prose pieces; fifteen new poems; and four research essays. For details of the contents please refer to issues #11 and #12.

 

In the Foreword to Issue #11 of the journal I explained that the women’s movement in Taiwan began in the 1970s. The initiator of the movement was former vice president Lü Hsiulien and its development was continued in the 1980s by Professor Li Yuan-chen. In the 1980s a group of young women writers, including Li Ang, Shih Shu-ching, Hsiao Sa, Hsiao Li-hung, Yuan Chiung-chiung, Liao Hui-ying, Chu Tien-wen, Chu Tien-hsin and others, appeared on the literary scene in Taiwan and established the place of women authors. The work of these writers described the difficulty of women in marriage, family, and traditional society. After 1987 and the lifting of martial law, freedom of speech and ideological diversity were guaranteed in Taiwanese society. That meant that such topics as politics and sexuality proliferated because they were no longer proscribed. In the early 1980s, the content of Li Ang’s novel The Butcher’s Wife (1983) shook the literary establishment. Her Lost Garden, published in 1991, pushed women’s writing toward new milestones by probing the topics of sexual desire and consciousness of reality, and initiated a reevaluation of political subjects such as national identity, ideology, and communal memory. Professor Sylvia Lin’s English translation of Lost Garden was published in 2016 by Columbia University Press. In the stories of women writers from the post-martial law period of the late 1980s, the issues of gender identity and political identity often intersected and compounded each other, becoming a commonly observed mode of post-colonial literature and feminist discourse, wherein colonialism and anti-colonialism, patriarchy, and feminism, empowerment and disempowerment, violence and resistance were arrayed in relations of opposition. With the 1990s and the arrival of post-modernism, women’s literature and feminist discourse began more diverse explorations, including fiction and discourse on special proclivities, gay experience, and female homosexual desire, as well as queer writing and LGBT literature. Women authors dealing with topics of gender identity and heterosexual desire continue to appear and contribute their voices.

 

As discussed above, we generally understand the direction and development of feminist thinking in Taiwan as well as the nature and extent of the presence of Taiwanese women writers in the literary world. Since the works chosen for translation in our journal are predominantly literary, we hope the ideas and experiences will be reflected from a female perspective. By publishing this special issue on “New Generation Women’s Fiction from Taiwan,” which comes twenty years after our first special issues on women’s writing and represents a different generation of writers, we can see the differences between gendered writing in earlier and later eras, as well as social changes since the lifting of martial law and the progressive evolution in the themes and styles of women’s writing. The work of contemporary Taiwanese women writers provides a realistic view of the lived experience of Taiwanese society, reflecting the fabric of its historical development and elucidating the special characteristics of Taiwanese women’s literature. The writings in this issue all represent the voices of women and interpret women’s own innermost experience, thereby presenting the unique sounds and colorings of contemporary Taiwanese women’s literature.

 

For this special issue on “New Generation Women’s Fiction from Taiwan,” we have specially invited Professor Lee Kuei Yun of the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature at Taiwan’s Tsing Hua University to be guest editor and take responsibility for the selections. Because of space limitations it has been possible only to select twelve short stories by eleven woman writers. These writers were all born in the 1970s or later and their works were published in the year 2000 or later. Thus, they represent a period of social change in twenty-first century Taiwan and the spirit of the new generation. The introduction that we asked Professor Lee to provide is entitled “Trauma, Desire, Contemporary Women’s Voices.” Aside from giving a brief account of the eleven writers and their works, Professor Lee sketches “a number of writerly qualities that become perceptible… [that] represent the internal trauma, female consciousness, physical lust, cat-human metaphors, and everyday life, etc.” In her introduction, what she particularly stresses is that the sexual desire depicted in these works exposes the internal wounds derived from private individual experience hidden away in the deepest levels of the female consciousness that are exposed for direct observation, and “… [from this] we can tease out a clear semblance of a feminine texture that reverberates with the unique sound of contemporary women’s voices.” This then is one of the most important qualities of the new generation of Taiwanese women’s fiction.

 

There is perhaps no better example of the unmasking of the wounds of female desire than the case of the young woman writer Lin Yi-han whose suicide shook Taiwanese society in 2017. The incident, that involved Lin committing suicide by hanging herself, was deeply troubling. Lin Yi-han, who was born in 1991, was an outstanding younger representative of the generation of woman writers whose works we have gathered in this special issue. At the beginning of February of 2017, she published her only novel, The Paradise of Fang Si-Ch’i’s First Love. The book relates the story of how a thirteen-year-old girl, Fang Si-ch’i, was seduced and abused by her fifty-year-old cram school teacher, Li Guo-hua. Their sexual relationship, which lasted for five years, led Fang Si-ch’i to suffer from depression and emotional trauma. Her self-internalization, and attempts to persuade herself that she had fallen in love with her teacher eventually resulted in her mental collapse. Despite it being Lin Yi-han’s first book, it is highly eloquent. The writing is elegant, the use of metaphor intricate, and the psychological depiction meticulous. The title page indicates that the book “is dedicated to my sisters who are waiting for the angels” and that it was “based on real people and real events.” Clearly, the author employed the novel as a means of narrating her personal experience and to expose the harm that sexual violence brings to its victims.

 

Lin Yi-han’s novel points out the wounds, just as the “Introduction” to this issue refers to how “through incisive, exacting depiction the authors of these stories draw out the internal trauma and engage in the naming of names,” and how “the works in this issue emanate a strongly inward-looking quality. They look squarely at all forms of desire, pointing out the wounds one after another.” Sadly, on April 27, 2017, not three months after the publication of her first and only novel, Lin Yi-han’s traumatic experience and her writing about sexual desire led to her choice to hang herself at the age of twenty-six. Her tragic life and despairing fate evoked my deepest sympathy and therefore I drafted a poem to commemorate the circumstances of her life and examine the unavoidable necessity of facing the nature of sexual desire and the final decision that she made in her life. I have included the poem below in hopes that it may correlate with the theme of this issue and provide a footnote to such writing on desire and the injury that it can bring.

 

A Maiden’s Prayer—Mourning Lin Yi-han

—Heaven is almost enjoyable, there is no suffering there

 

After being defiled she grew ill

The demons entangled her heart

Wringing out every last drop of blood

Which fell trembling on the manuscript word after word

The painful color of blood smeared

Before her eyes as she wept through the night

How could she navigate her life

That river so turbid

 

She could only lock herself in her room

Reading thinking praying to the demons

Praying them to let go to let her truly live

To live happily like other girls

 

Nightmare confessions revealed the true nature of the pain:

What had been thrust in and could not be withdrawn!

The blood that she spat out page after page melancholic lines

 of text

Reveal a young girl’s talent her style her compassion

And her life the remains of her pride

When arousing sensation became a habit oh, the hypocritical

 readers

How could I explain to you when I was a young girl

I fell in love with the teacher who raped me!

Her writings became the art of exorcism

Hoping to extract herself from the depravity and filth

Expelling drop by drop the defilement of her lust

Exorcizing word by word the temptation of the demons of her youth

 

Ah ah! from the paradise of Fang Si-ch’i’s first love

A concentration camp survivor when depression attacks

She prays over and over to the angel in her mind

Dear Lord I beg you, take me to another world

Please understand the hardship of my life

Allow me to return the hypocrisy ugliness and cruelty of

humanity

To the human world allow me the true me

To break free from my cursed life

 

She tied a perfect knot for herself

Extended her long, graceful neck and gazed toward heaven

Then an angel of pure goodness and true love

Peered from the clouds with a smile

And beckoned earnestly to her

(May 4, 2017)

 

In the final analysis, trauma and writing about desire are two major themes of Taiwanese women’s literature. It is curious that of the twelve short stories in this issue, three refer to cats in their title: Huang Li-chun’s “Cat Sickness,” Shu-wen Hu’s “A Cat Floating in Blood,” and Yan Shuxia’s “Wife’s Cat.” There is a reason for this connection between cats and artists and writers. American author and arts and culture reporter Alison Nastasi has published two best-selling books, Artists and Their Cats (2015) and Writers and Their Cats (2018), which collect endearing stories about famous authors and artists and their kitties.

 

It is hardly necessary to mention Natsume Soseki’s I am a Cat and Lao She’s Cat Country, which are renowned examples of writers and their cats, but Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Murakami Haruki, Baudelaire and many other famous writers and artists were also infatuated with cats, to the extent of becoming their slaves. In everyday life, cats can be home companions for the lonely, sources of comfort for solitary spirits, or well-springs of creative inspiration. In Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil, there are three verses devoted to cats, #34, #51, and #61. For Baudelaire, cats were embodiments of women, and desire incarnate. He wrote such a poem:

 

The Cat

Come, superb cat, to my amorous heart;

Hold back the talons of your paws,

Let me gaze into your beautiful eyes

Of metal and agate.

 

When my fingers leisurely caress you,

Your head and your elastic back,

And when my hand tingles with the pleasure

Of feeling your electric body,

 

In spirit I see my woman. Her gaze

Like your own, amiable beast,

Profound and cold, cuts and cleaves like a dart,

 

And, from her head down to her feet,

A subtle air, a dangerous perfume

Floats about her dusky body.

— Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, William Aggeler, trans. (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

 

Real cats, whether they be “cute,” or “mysterious,” or “pure,” or “unusual,” are all as sublime as rainbows in the imagination and aesthetic sense of the poet as they are transformed into an ambience of desire, making him “sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses.”

 

Finally, with the completion of this issue we cannot neglect to express our special gratitude to the authors for granting us the rights to publish their work, and to our team of translators and editors for their hard work and cooperation, as well as Professor Lee’s research assistant, Tai Chun Lin, for her coordination with the authors. Our guest editor Professor Lee Kuei Yun’s selection of works and her introduction provide a clear outline of the salient contours of the issue’s theme. We also would like to thank Professor Bert Scruggs for enthusiastically recommending and contacting the translators. Aside from veteran translators John Balcom and Yingtsih Hwang, who have contributed to the journal for many years, there are a number of new faces among the translators for this issue, perhaps indicating that the time to pass the torch to the up-and-coming generation of translators has arrived. We welcome these young translators to our translation team. We also would like to thank Tu Shu-wei, who has just recently earned his PhD from the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature at National Taiwan University. He assisted by reading over the translations and original texts of the twelve stories and offered his advice on correct renderings. Our English editor, Terence Russell, and copy editor, Fred Edwards, worked over the manuscripts of the translations to ensure their readability. Special thanks to Terence Russell, our coeditor, who has worked throughout the process of preparing the issue for publication to coordinate and bring things together. His tireless work and many contributions have been indispensable. Yen Chia-yun, the editor charged with overseeing the production of the journal at National Taiwan University Press, took responsibility for the design of the cover as well as the formatting and printing, etc. With her careful attention to detail and diligent work she has ensured that the work of producing this issue has proceeded smoothly, and for this we wish to express our deep gratitude.

 

The cover of this edition has been meticulously designed by the graphic designers at National Taiwan University Press. On the palette of women writers’ imaginations, women, cats and desire are tightly interwoven. That is why in the composition of the cover design, the image a woman in a pure white highlights the main theme of the issue. At the same time, phantom images of two cats are interposed; one in front of the woman, one behind, one dark, one white. Living on the land of an ever-changing Taiwan, wounded emotions seep through as a melancholy pale purple hue. This provides the foundational color. While the dark colored cat represents unbearable reminiscences of the past, the white cat represents rebirth and hope for the future. All creations are the product of a particular time and space. Reminiscence implies that which has taken place, the future is filled with infinite imaginings, and the creations of the present are for healing wounds, letting go of the past, and looking toward the future. This is what Eliot meant when he wrote:

 

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

 

If time past implies tradition, all creative work is rooted in present time and space, yet it also exists in the future, and in the end, it will become the tradition. We hope that these writings by the new generation of Taiwan’s women authors will bring our readers some linkages between “the present” and “the tradition.”

 

As our journal moves forward into its twenty-fifth year of publication, when we will produce our fiftieth volume, we hope that there will be a new generation of scholars and translators to whom we may pass the torch so that they can contribute what they are able to continue our progress down the long road of Taiwan literature in English translation, and join efforts to further open international space for the study and research of Taiwan literature.