【Taiwan Literature Base】WiR Regular Activity | The Story Changes in Your Hands

Kevin Wang (王可) is the translator of Terao Tetsuya's Spent Bullets (HarperVia, 2025) and has published in Books from Taiwan, Gulf Coast, Circumference, The Margins, and Asymptote Journal. As a Fulbright Taiwan grantee, he has worked for the past two years as an EMI Advisor at National Taipei University of Technology. He holds a Creative Writing MFA from Columbia University, where he taught undergraduate writing. He is a member of the Taipei Poetry Collective and co-hosts the Stories of Taiwan Reading Club. Born in Kaifeng, he is shaped by years lived in Virginia Beach, Western Massachusetts, New York, and Chiayi.

Session 1：Reclaiming a Literary Villain
Date：August 24th (Sun.) 2PM - 4PM30
Venue：Muse Garden, Taiwan Literature Base

Pan Jinlian is one of the most infamous women in Sinophone literature, cast for centuries as a villain, adulteress, and femme fatale. In this workshop, translator Kevin Wang introduces a retelling of her story by Taiwanese writer Coco Shen (沈意卿). We'll trace how Jinlian has been depicted across literature and media, from classical novels to modern translations and films such as I Am Not Madame Bovary. Next, we'll explore the ethical and political tensions of translating this story into English.

Through reading, group discussion, and collaborative translation experiments, we'll ask: What are the translator's responsibilities? What feminist readings does this story invite, and how might an English translation support or sabotage them? How do we honor the story's ambiguity around consent, violence, and desire? What are the risks of exoticizing a character whose name literally means "Golden Lotus?" What are the distinct political stakes in translating a Taiwanese writer's reinterpretation of this story?
(Participants are encouraged, but not required, to read the text beforehand.)

Session 2：Pitching Stories from Taiwan to the World　
Date：August 30th (Sat.) 2PM - 4PM30
Venue：Muse Garden, Taiwan Literature Base

This session invites participants to step into the role of advocates and cultural mediators of Taiwanese texts. We will analyze examples of pitches to international publishers, focusing on how to frame a Taiwanese text to editors unfamiliar with the source context. What kinds of stories do different editors looking for? How do you come up with comparison titles? What language grabs attention? What are current trends in anglophone publishing? Using "My Name is Jinlian" as a case study, we'll break down the anatomy of a pitch and learn how to highlight voice, theme, market fit, and cultural significance.

Then, it's your turn. Choose a Taiwanese text you love (or from a curated list) and try writing a short pitch to "sell" it to the world. You'll have time to draft, share ideas, and get feedback in this playful, low-pressure space to practice literary matchmaking.

Notice：The activity will be conducted mainly in English.

More Information：
https://event.culture.tw/mocweb/reg/NMTL/Detail.init.ctr?actId=50139&request_locale=en&useLanguage=en