This year marks the 50th anniversary of the literary work “Taipei People” by one of Taiwan’s most prominent authors, Pai Hsien-yung. For the occasion, the Trend Education Foundation and the National Central Library joined together to hold a special exhibit of Pai’s works.
At the opening of the exhibit on Pai Hsien-yung’s writings, Taiwan’s Peking opera singer Wei Hai-min sang the role of Madame Chien in a Peking opera rendition of Pai’s work “Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream”. The author is a key figure in reviving kunqu, an old operatic tradition of China.
Pai is known for introducing Western-style modernism to Chinese literature. It is the 50th anniversary of Pai’s most famous work “Taipei People”, a collection of 14 short stories about people fleeing to Taiwan from China during the 1950s after the Chinese Civil War. Another of Pai’s well-known works is “Crystal Boys”, a novel about homosexual youth. It was a groundbreaking work written in the 1980s when people didn’t talk openly about homosexuality in Taiwan.
In the last ten years, Pai wrote a “Father’s Trilogy” about his father Pai Chung-hsi, who was a famous general under Chiang Kai-shek when Chiang was leading the Chinese Nationalist Party regime in the 1950s. [01 45 Pai speaks] Pai said the relationship between his father and Chiang was a tumultuous time for 40 years.
The exhibit at the National Central Library will be open till the end of December.