ká-sióng, from the Taiwanese romanization of 假想, which means make-believe, imagine, hypothesise – derived from 假/ ká meaning 'false' and 想 'sióng' meaning 'thinking', so 'false thinking' / imagination / hypothesis – is the latest series of new translations from Strangers Press.
This time out we are featuring writers and translators from Taiwan in a set of five thrillingly distinctive chapbooks expertly curated in partnership with series editor, Jeremy Tiang, and exquisitely designed with our customary flair. The perfect pick-me-up for the literary curious, each carefully selected story is full of piercing insight and intrigue.
ká-sióng 1:Not Your Child by Lâu Tsí-û / tr. Jenna Tang
“The flames of public fury burned so fiercely this time it seemed hell itself might engulf the mortal world.”
A by turns humorous, touching and harrowing story concerning Yu-Jie, a Social Media Manager for a local MP facing a PR disaster in the midsts of a wave of social outrage stirred up by a troubling crime.
ká-sióng 2:Cage by Qiu Miaojin / tr. Shengchi Hsu
"This is in essence a cage without a door, the size of a single room... Clearly, you've resolved to run away; to keep running and running..."
Boy meets girl when both happen to arrive on the same rooftop, on the same day, to kill themselves. Instead, they chat and make a pact that sees their lives gradually entwine but unravel at the same time.
ká-sióng 3:Mountain Rat by Lulyang Nomin / tr. Yu Teng-Wei
"Yasu stopped what she was doing and caught a glimse of the wound as I rolled up my trousers to reveal the two purple-blue punctures on my right ankle. The knife in her hand slipped onto the cutting board and the clatter of metal hitting wood echoed through the kitchen."
A chilling, gothic fable in which the narrator is bitten by a mountain rat while out in the forest. Recalling his grandfather once told him of a bamboo hut where members of the tribe could quarantine for up to two years when they got ill, he rushes home to say goodbye to his wife Yu-Su and pack his bags as a troubling sickness takes hold.
ká-sióng 4:
Cloud Labour by Sabrina Huang / tr. Lin King
"The key is not to be misled by objects or ornaments that seem overtly symbolic, or pay too much attention to things in prominent locations... such decorations are just fragmented marginal sensory information and as such can't be translated into coherent output."
Set in an unspecified dystopian future in which people known as ‘Proxies’ are paid handsomely to remove negative emotions from their clients, Peacock, a successful Proxy, trains her son Sky to join the profession.
ká-sióng 5:
Social by Lamulu Pakawyan / tr. Colin Bramwell & Wen-chi Li
"Your body landed in a strange, theatrical posture beside the longan tree in front of your house. You were found, resuscitated, and sent to the intensive care unit. Your score on the Glasgow Coma Scale continues to drop."
A woman has fallen off the roof of her house in what was either a drunken accident or an attempted suicide and now lies in a coma. Over the course of the next seven days, the unnamed narrator watches over her while tracking the comments the incident has attracted online.