Overview

Wu Ming-Yi is one of Taiwan's most celebrated contemporary writers, whose work bridges literature, environmental thought, and history with a global perspective. The Wu Ming-yi Companion is the first comprehensive volume in English dedicated to his oeuvre, offering fresh scholarly insights from leading researchers across Taiwan, Hong Kong, North America, and Europe. Wu's fiction, including The Man with the Compound Eyes and The Stolen Bicycle, has captivated international readers with its unique blend of magical realism, ecological awareness, and deep historical inquiry. His narratives interweave Taiwan's colonial past, the traumas of war, and the fragile relationship between humans and the natural world, creating a body of work that resonates far beyond Taiwan's borders. His nature writing, marked by poetic lyricism and meticulous observation, reveals the beauty and vulnerability of Taiwan's landscapes and wildlife. Engaging deeply with environmental ethics, Wu's works reflect a critical consciousness of ecological destruction and the interconnectedness of human and nonhuman lives. This volume situates Wu's work within the broader contexts of world literature, Sinophone studies, and environmental humanities, exploring his engagement with Indigenous narratives, transnational ecocriticism, and Taiwan's complex colonial history. Featuring contributions on his novels, short stories, and nature essays, as well as reflections on translation and literary reception, The Wu Ming-Yi Companion provides invaluable perspectives on his literary achievements. By examining how Wu's writings illuminate both Taiwan's past and the pressing environmental crises of the present, this book offers a compelling lens into the power of literature to shape our understanding of history, nature, and humanity's place within it. Includes illustrations. Cambria Sinophone World Series (General Editor: Wendy Larson)

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9781638573678

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Reviews

""Wu Ming-Yi stands as one of the most outstanding living writers of environmental and nature-related speculative fiction and critical literature in any language. In this compelling volume, Berry and Chiu have assembled a world-class cohort of critical thinkers from Taiwan, North America, and Europe to examine Wu's remarkable body of work and introduce English-language readers to his literary genius. Wu's celebrated novel The Man with the Compound Eyes, which has garnered widespread acclaim in translation, exemplifies his mastery of blending ecological themes with speculative narratives. This volume is required reading for anyone seeking innovative perspectives on the global environmental crisis-from 'CliFi' enthusiasts and world literature scholars to environmental activists and visionary policymakers. A brilliant volume."" -Ari Heinrich, Australian National University ""A timely and bold intervention, this landmark volume illuminates the many talents of one of Taiwan's most celebrated literary figures. While he is best known for his environmental imagination and nature-centered storytelling, this companion reveals Wu Ming-Yi as a gifted educator, an incisive ecocritic, a cosmopolitan naturalist, and a talented writer and artist deeply engaged with Taiwan's Indigenous worlds and ecological futures. Michael Berry and Kuei-fen Chiu bring together a definitive collection of essays that are at once conceptually rigorous and beautifully crafted, impressive in both breadth and depth. The book is a fascinating guide to Wu's work, which itself stages Taiwan's global odyssey through inviting dialogues between fictive idioms and social patterns, ecological disasters and orders of knowledge, biopolitics and nonhuman agents, and the layered momentum of history and the shadow of modernity."" -Howard Chiang, University of California, Santa Barbara ""This collection gathers insightful essays on all aspects of Wu's oeuvre. It includes analyses of his literary works, his environmental commitments, perspectives on translating his fiction, and Wu Ming-yi's own reflections on his intellectual project through a translated essay of his writing process and an in-depth interview. The volume concludes with an appendix of Wu's own images and an extensive, multifaceted bibliography. Meticulously edited and thoughtfully organized, this companion is an indispensable resource for scholars and teachers of Chinese and Sinophone literature, as well as for readers interested in environmental studies. The contributors represent an international cross-section of scholars, some of whom are widely recognized as among the leading voices in modern Chinese and Sinophone writing. This book is essential reading for anyone engaged with Taiwan studies and for readers committed to environmental issues."" -Christopher Lupke, University of Alberta

Author Information

Michael Berry is Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is also the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies (CCS) and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Film, TV, and Media. Kuei-fen Chiu is Distinguished Professor of Taiwan Literature and Transnational Cultural Studies at National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan.

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