After Japanese and Korean Books, Is Taiwanese Literature The Next Big Reading Trend

Set in 1938, during Japanese colonial rule, the novel follows Japanese writer Aoyama Chizuko and her Taiwanese interpreter, Ō Chizuru, as they travel through Taiwan eating, talking and negotiating a relationship shaped by affection and unequal power. Food gives the novel warmth, but underneath sits a sharper examination of empire, language and who gets to interpret another person’s country.