Wild Kids

Two Novels About Growing Up
Erscheinungsjahr 2002
ISBN: 978-0-231-12097-5
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 196 mm, Gewicht: 318 g

Reihe: Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan

These two searingly funny and unsettling portraits of teenagers beyond the control and largely beneath the notice of adults in 1980s Taiwan are the first English translations of works by Taiwan's most famous and best-selling literary cult figure. Chang Ta-chun's intricate narrative and keen, ironic sense of humor poignantly and piercingly convey the disillusionment and cynicism of modern Taiwanese youth.

Interweaving the events between the birth of the narrator's younger sister and her abortion at the age of nineteen, the first novel, My Kid Sister, evokes the complex emotional impressions of youth and the often bizarre social dilemmas of adolescence. Combining discussions of fate, existentialism, sexual awakening, and everyday "absurdities" in a typically dysfunctional household, it documents the loss of innocence and the deconstruction of a family.

In Wild Child, fourteen-year-old Hou Shichun drops out of school, runs away from home, and descends into the Taiwanese underworld, where he encounters an oddball assortment of similarly lost adolescents in desperate circumstances. This novel will inevitably invite comparisons with the classic The Catcher in the Rye, but unlike Holden Caulfield, Hou isn't given any second chances. With characteristic frankness and irony, Chang's teenagers bear witness to a new form of cultural and spiritual bankruptcy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Berry, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Ost- & Südostasiatische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Translator's IntroductionMy Kid SisterA Present Just for MeNauseaA New Breed of WomanFirst LoveHer TabooOn TreatmentAll That Remains Is Our Shell of FleshListening Intently and Telling StoriesThe Awakening of LaughterChronicle of DeathEnding in InsanityWild ChildFriendsThe BeginningIn the StreetsIn the Heart of the NightStoriesGamesGood-for-nothingsThe HandgunAnnieThe PastOn the RooftopBrothersMistakesThe HotelThe PortChangesThe PosterSecretsThe WindowHappinessLearningFrom BirthPitifulThe CelebrityThe AdoptionThe NegotiationThe BirthdayAnd SupposingForgetting

Über Autor(innen)

Chang Ta-chun is among Taiwan's premier contemporary authors. His prolific and varied output has transformed him from a cult literary figure into a virtual celebrity in Taiwan, where he produces and hosts a television program on literature. He has published twenty-one books since his emergence on the literary scene almost two decades ago and has taught at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. He lives in Taiwan and maintains a home in Iowa, where he spends several months of the year.Michael Berry is a doctoral candidate in modern Chinese literature at Columbia University. He is the translator of several works, including the forthcoming novel To Live by Yu Hua.