Taiwanese author Kevin Shih Hung Chen, 48, believes that literature and films have “the power to save young souls” who suffer in a conservative society. Growing up in Yongjing, a small countryside town in Taiwan where anti-gay sentiment was rampant, he turned to books and the local movie theatre for solace.
“When I was a teenager, I often wanted to die,” he said. A classmate read the poems he had scribbled in his math textbook and screamed, “Kevin is gay!” He spent the next few years fiercely closeted, struggling to blend in with the crowd. “The books I read as a boy comforted me by giving me hope that there is a much bigger world outside of Yongjing, that there isn’t just one way of living.” Eventually, he left Yongjing for Taipei to attend university and then moved to Berlin, where he currently lives.
He returned to Yongjing through his 2019 novel “Ghost Town,” a rich family saga filled with ghosts, secrets, yearnings, modern Taiwanese history, suicide, and murder. The novel has since been published in 12 languages, including English, Japanese, Korean, and French. Chen won two of Taiwan’s most prestigious literary awards with this novel. In Korea, “Ghost Town” was published this January and has already been reprinted eight times.
The novel follows Keith Chen, the youngest son of a Taiwanese family of seven, who has just been released from prison for killing his German boyfriend. He heads to his childhood home, Yongjing, to meet his five elder sisters. Told through multiple narratives, including all his siblings and the ghosts of other family members, the novel touches on the dark side of Taiwan’s modern history. The novel, partly autobiographical, is set during the White Terror, a period of authoritarian rule and political repression in Taiwan from 1949 to 1992 under the government ruled by the Kuomintang.
“During the White Terror, everything was censored and regulated,” Chen said. “Nobody could reveal their true selves. People couldn’t truly live like humans, and even ghosts couldn’t live like ghosts.”
While “Ghost Town” dealt with bigger themes involving repression on a societal and familial level, his new novel, “Pangolin No. 67,” delves into the lives of individuals in present-day Taiwan. The book, originally published in Taiwan last October, centers on a gay man and a straight woman who have known each other since childhood. As children, they filmed a TV commercial for a mattress and a movie about pangolins, small insect-eating animals covered in overlapping scales, and the story begins as the two reunite years later as adults.
Chen flew to Seoul from Berlin to celebrate the novel’s release in Korea, its first foreign-language edition. “Only in Korea could my novel be translated and published within a year,” he said during a press conference on Sept. 9. He wore a big smile as he held the Korean edition of “Pangolin No. 67.”
“Life in Taiwan is different now. Same-sex marriage has been legalized, and we also had a female president. Individuals can exist as themselves. But life can still be lonely and filled with sorrow. The characters in Pangolin No. 67 are not free, and through them, I wanted to convey the importance of freedom.”
In your novels, you explore the oppression women and sexual minorities face on a daily basis. What inspired your interest in this subject?
“I have seven older sisters, which is like having eight mothers. Whenever I messed up, I’d get scolded eight times! I grew up surrounded by women. When I was growing up in Taiwan, the patriarchy was so deeply ingrained that society did not care for my sisters. I could observe the myriad of emotions women felt during those times, ranging from sorrow to anger.
The patriarchy is a burden on everyone. Men are expected to bear all the economic responsibility, while women used to be excluded from the workforce or confined to low-paying jobs. Men and women couldn’t stand as equals. I was deeply saddened by these systemic issues and wanted to address them through my novels. And as a sexual minority myself, I’ve always been interested in stories about sexual minorities.”
“Pangolin No. 67″ focuses on the individual, unlike “Ghost Town,” which had a strong historical focus.
“Ghost Town is about a family that lived through the White Terror. During this time, everything was censored and regulated in Taiwan. Nobody could reveal their true selves. Under such a system, women and sexual minorities couldn’t express their true selves and had to perform according to societal expectations. The smiles and tears from that period were all part of an act, a performance. In Ghost Town, people couldn’t truly live like humans, and even ghosts couldn’t live like ghosts. People were trying to survive those years as best they could.
Pangolin No. 67 is about modern-day Taiwan. Same-sex marriage has been legalized, and we also had a female president. People can exist as individuals. I wanted to talk about the sadness and loneliness we feel as individuals in modern society. Just because same-sex marriage is legalized in Taiwan doesn’t mean society is free of prejudice. Even after publishing this book, I received several death threats.”
Could you tell us about your new book?
“The novel is about a man and a woman whose names are only revealed at the end of the book. The protagonists first meet when they film a TV commercial and movie together as children, and they reunite years later when the movie is invited to a European film festival. The novel is filled with beds, sleep, and many pangolins. It’s about sorrow and what could have been. Through the novel, I wanted to depict the subtle relationship between a gay man and a straight woman. It’s an unusual dynamic in a patriarchal society because, in a patriarchy, male sexual minorities and women are often regarded as second-class citizens. ”
You’re currently based in Berlin. What brought you to Germany?
“I wanted to escape Taiwan, to leave Yongjing, the “ghost town.” I grew up in a small rural village and later moved to Taipei for college, but Taipei wasn’t far enough. I went to Berlin as a journalist, and it was the first time I truly felt alone and enjoyed solitude. Taiwan is a very close-knit society. The bonds between family and friends are physically close but emotionally distant.”
What made you decide to become a writer?
“I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a boy. I wrote my first novel when I was ten years old. When I told my sisters, “I’m going to be a writer when I grow up,” they said, “No! You’ll starve to death!” Taiwan, if you said you wanted to write novels for a living, people would try to discourage you by telling you that you wouldn’t make any money. Good thing I didn’t listen to them and kept writing.”
How did you overcome the sadness you felt growing up as a sexual minority?
“When I was young, I often wanted to die. I used to write poems in my math textbook, and one day, a classmate saw them and yelled, “Kevin is gay!” After that, I tried very hard to look normal. But as you can see, I’m a colorful person with a loud voice, so it was difficult to hide my true self from the world. Growing up, I read a lot of world literature. The books helped me realize that there isn’t just one way of living and that many different worlds exist. I began to think that maybe, in another world, I could be myself.
My sister loved watching movies, so she would take me to the cinema. Some of the films weren’t appropriate for my age, but she didn’t care and we saw the movies together anyway. Back then, I thought of the movie screen at the cinema as a window. I believed that if I could go beyond that window, I could escape to another world.”
What was your favorite movie?
“I particularly liked director Ang Lee’s “The Wedding Banquet.” At the time, Taiwan was very conservative, and many people disapproved of the movie as the main characters were gay. But because the film won an award at the Berlin Film Festival, they couldn’t criticize it openly. Later, when I worked as a translator at the Berlin Film Festival, I had the chance to meet the American actor who appeared in that movie. I could briefly thank him for being part of a film that saved me during my youth. In a conservative society, films and literature can save a young person’s soul.”
