Ghost Town

FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR & WINNER OF THE TAIWAN LITERATURE AWARD

Chen Tien-Hong, the only and desperately yearned for son of a traditional Taiwanese family with seven daughters, runs away from the oppression of his village to Berlin in the hope of finding acceptance as a young gay man.

The novel begins a decade later, when Chen has just been released from prison for killing his boyfriend. He is about to return to his family’s village, a poor and desolate place. With his parents gone, his sisters married, mad, or dead, there is nothing left for him there. As the story unfurls, we learn what tore this family apart and, more importantly, the truth behind the murder of Chen’s boyfriend.

Told in a myriad of voices, both living and dead, and moving through time with deceptive ease, Ghost Town weaves a mesmerizing web of family secrets and countryside superstitions, the search for identity and clash of cultures.

中文版為《鬼地方》陳思宏著 鏡文學出版
https://www.sanmin.com.tw/Product/index/007407226

Kevin Chen began his artistic career as a cinema actor, starring in the Taiwanese and German films Ghosted, Kung Bao Huhn, and Global Player. Now based in Germany, he is a staff writer for Performing Arts Reviews magazine. He's published several novels, essays and short story collections, including Attitude, Flowers from Fingernails, Three Ways to Get Rid of Allergies and other titles.

Darryl Sterk has translated a dozen novels from Taiwan, including Lee Wei-Jing's The Mermaid's Tale, Sakinu Ahronglong's Hunter School, Chih-ying Lay's Home Sickness, Horace Ho's The Tree Fort on Carnation Lane, as well as Wu Ming-Yi's The Man With the Compound Eyes and The Stolen Bicycle, which was longlisted for the Booker International Prize. He lives between Taipei and Hong Kong.