Overview

On the nation island of Taiwan, Ngoo Tsín-suī is a humble young man with a gift for handling water buffalo and a character that mirrors the buffalo's tenacity and strength. His father forces him to give up his dreams for a higher education to work on the family farm. When his father kicks him out of the family home, Tsín-suī becomes a tutor, gets a job in an agricultural research lab that specializes in banana trees, marries and starts a family before the War in the Pacific. When Japan surrenders in 1945, the Chinese Nationalists arrive, and Taiwanese are handed from one master to another. Life in Taiwan takes a turn for the worse under the Chiang's iron-fisted regime. When Tsín-suī witnesses the brutal murder of his friend during the barbaric political suppression of the 228 uprisings, he is terrorized, flees for his own life, and goes into hiding. He and his family manage to survive military roundups and summary executions. Over time, Tsín-suī leads the country's largest banana exports cooperative to a near-monopoly. However, secret police, spies, lies, and endemic corruption set a trap for Tsín-suī that leads to his tragic downfall. Wang-tai Lee dramatically weaves the story of ""Banana King"" Ngoo Tsín-suī (1908-1993) with actual events, fictional elements, and the culture and politics of Taiwan. The multilinguistic dialogue- retained by Timothy Smith in the English translation-creates authentic characters and highlights ""the struggles of native Taiwanese to adapt to successive colonial regimes.""

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9781945049446

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Reviews

"""A human tragedy and a political cautionary tale."" Min-yong Lee, Poet and winner of Taiwan's 2007 National Award for the Arts ""The dramatic novel Banana King Ng�o Ts�n-suī epitomizes the rise and fall of Taiwan's post-banana economy. Wang-tai Lee vividly depicts the tragic fate and identity politics of Taiwanese elites caught between Japan and China."" Lung-Chih Chang (張隆志), Director of the National Museum of Taiwan History and former Vice Director of the Institute of Taiwan History at Academia Sinica ""Banana King Ng�o Ts�n-suī is a splendid biographical rendition of a prolific figure at the heart of Taiwan's banana kingdom-a wonderful tale intertwining Taiwan's international politics, colonial history, and the struggle between the [Kuomintang] KMT party-state and local Taiwanese."" Ming-Yi Wu (吳明益), Award-winning author of The Stolen Bicycle, The Man with the Compound Eyes, and other literary works ""A biography on the 1970s legend of the 'Banana King, ' bound with a part of Taiwan's past forgotten by most-the internal political succession feuds of Chiang Kai-shek's family members at the head of the country's martial-law-era government. Wang-tai Lee's Banana King Ng�o Ts�n-suī is a wonderful novel on this part of Taiwan's history."" Dr. Yao-chang Che (陳耀昌), Physician, professor emeritus of medicine at National Taiwan University, former legislator, and award-winning author of Puppet Flower: A Novel of 1867 Formosa"

Author Information

Wang-tai Lee is a seasoned journalist and author and was the most active writer in southern Taiwan for the Taiwan Political Review (政論雜誌) and other popular political commentary magazines of the '70s, '80s and '90s. In recent years, Lee has penned several novels, including Gao Sai Zhe Yi Jia (2018, Mirror Fiction), Harima-maru (2016, Yuanshen Press), and Du Jiao Ren Wang Guo (2015, Chun-Hui Books). He is the recipient of a literary award from the 6th HuaiEn Charity Foundation, in addition to both the 1st and 4th Taiwan Historical Novels Award conferred by the New Taiwan Peace Foundation, and he was shortlisted for the 2017 National Museum of Taiwan Literature Awards. Timothy Smith is originally from New Bern, North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. He earned a master's degree from the Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation at National Taiwan Normal University. His interests include cultural works and topics by Taiwanese Indigenous authors, Taiwanese Hokkien literature, and exploring different facets of Taiwan's multicultural society. He's an avid horror fan and loves goosebumps-inducing ghost stories and thrillers. Smith is also highly committed to telling stories and uncovering truths regarding Taiwan's authoritarian period and to helping international readers learn about Taiwan's human rights history, which is often neglected and intentionally obscured or sidelined. Apart from Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien, Smith also knows a decent amount of Japanese and is currently learning Hakka and Atayal. His translations have appeared in Books from Taiwan samples, The Taipei Chinese PEN, and other literary magazines and collections.

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