WINNER OF THE 2018 LUCIEN STRYK ASIAN TRANSLATION PRIZE
The English-language premiere of Qiu Miaojin's coming-of-age novel about queer teenagers in Taiwan, a cult classic in China and winner of the 1995 China Times Literature Award.
An NYRB Classics Original
Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and major countercultural figure.
Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes a rich kid turned criminal and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover, as well as a bored, mischievous overachiever and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend.
Illustrating a process of liberation from the strictures of gender through radical self-inquiry, Notes of a Crocodile is a poignant masterpiece of social defiance by a singular voice in contemporary Chinese literature.
Qiu Miaojin (1969-1995)-one of Taiwan's most innovative literary modernists, and the country's most renowned lesbian writer-was born in Chuanghua County in western Taiwan. She graduated with a degree in psychology from National Taiwan University and pursued graduate studies in clinical psychology at the University of Paris VIII. Her first published story, "Prisoner," received the Central Daily News Short Story Prize, and her novella Lonely Crowds won the United Literature Association Award. While in Paris, she directed a thirty-minute film called Ghost Carnival, and not long after this, at the age of twenty-six, she committed suicide. The posthumous publications of her novels Last Words from Montmartre and Notes of a Crocodile made her into one of the most revered countercultural icons in Chinese letters. After her death in 1995, she was given the China Times Honorary Prize for Literature. In 2007, a two-volume edition of her Diaries was published, and in 2017 she became the subject of a feature-length documentary by Evans Chan titled Death in Montmartre.
Bonnie Huie is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. Her rendition of Motojiro Kajii's story "Under the Cherry Blossoms" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she has also translated the work of Tatsuhiro Oshiro. Her writings and translations appear in The Brooklyn Rail, Kyoto Journal, and Afterimage. Huie lives in New York.
WINNER OF THE 2018 LUCIEN STRYK ASIAN TRANSLATION PRIZE
The English-language premiere of Qiu Miaojin's coming-of-age novel about queer teenagers in Taiwan, a cult classic in China and winner of the 1995 China Times Literature Award.
An NYRB Classics Original
Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and major countercultural figure.
Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes a rich kid turned criminal and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover, as well as a bored, mischievous overachiever and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend.
Illustrating a process of liberation from the strictures of gender through radical self-inquiry, Notes of a Crocodile is a poignant masterpiece of social defiance by a singular voice in contemporary Chinese literature.
Qiu Miaojin (1969-1995)-one of Taiwan's most innovative literary modernists, and the country's most renowned lesbian writer-was born in Chuanghua County in western Taiwan. She graduated with a degree in psychology from National Taiwan University and pursued graduate studies in clinical psychology at the University of Paris VIII. Her first published story, "Prisoner," received the Central Daily News Short Story Prize, and her novella Lonely Crowds won the United Literature Association Award. While in Paris, she directed a thirty-minute film called Ghost Carnival, and not long after this, at the age of twenty-six, she committed suicide. The posthumous publications of her novels Last Words from Montmartre and Notes of a Crocodile made her into one of the most revered countercultural icons in Chinese letters. After her death in 1995, she was given the China Times Honorary Prize for Literature. In 2007, a two-volume edition of her Diaries was published, and in 2017 she became the subject of a feature-length documentary by Evans Chan titled Death in Montmartre.
Bonnie Huie is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. Her rendition of Motojiro Kajii's story "Under the Cherry Blossoms" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she has also translated the work of Tatsuhiro Oshiro. Her writings and translations appear in The Brooklyn Rail, Kyoto Journal, and Afterimage. Huie lives in New York.
This is the English-language premiere of Qiu Miaojin's coming-of-age novel about queer teenagers in Taiwan, a cult classic in China and winner of the 1995 China Times Literature Award.
Qiu Miaojin (1969-1995) was one of Taiwan's most innovative literary modernists, and the country's most renowned lesbian writer. Her posthumously published novels Last Words from Montmartre and Notes of a Crocodile are available as NYRB Classics. Eileen Myles is the author of nineteen books including I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems, and a 2015 reissue of Chelsea Girls. Myles lives in New York. Bonnie Huie is the recipient of a PEN Translation Fund Grant and lives in New York.
“[A] thrillingly transgressive coming-of age story by the Taiwanese
writer Qiu Miaojin. Bonnie Huie's translation is nothing short of
remarkable—loving, even; one gets the sense that great pains have
been taken to preserve the voice behind this lush, ontological
masterwork...First published in 1994, [it] is in many ways a
futuristic text, as it contains conversations about identity that
are happening now - and ones that have yet to. It is refreshing to
read a novel that so frankly examines patriarchy, misogyny,
homophobia, gender normativity and capitalism—especially one that
howls so freely with pain." —Leopoldine Core, The New York Times
Book Review
"Billed as a cult classic and crafted with a unique mix of notes,
diary entries, short scenes, and satire, this updated translation
will shed more light on the work of a renowned but little-known
author." —Sara Novic, Elle
"Her prose is in turns satirical, obsessive, and devastating, and
explores 'closetedness' amidst consuming romantic love, isolation,
and crippling mental illness…Qui’s work has, in a way, fulfilled
what both the narrator Lazi and the crocodile are yearning for
throughout the book: communion and solace with like-minded
creatures." —Liz von Klemperer, Lambda Literary
"Miaojin's willingness to show youth at its most self-absorbed and
earnest is part of the book's appeal. Most readers—perhaps
especially those who identify as LGBTQ—will see themselves
somewhere in Lazi's agonized social circle. But Miaojin also
reminds her readers at every turn how truly isolating otherness can
be...A meandering, but moving, look at queer identity.” —Kirkus
Reviews
"Despite a short life, Qiu Miaojin has left behind a notable legacy
in contemporary Chinese literature. Her writings, along with her
tragic death, have shed new light on the predicament gays and
lesbians faced in Taiwanese society.... At the heart of Qiu’s work
lies the author’s recognition that the nature of passion and love
intensifies human existence in both its most beautiful and its most
monstrous moments." —Li-hua Ying, Professor of English, Bard
College
"Qiu Miaojin...had an exceptional talent. Her voice is assertive,
intellectual, witty, lyrical, and intimate...her works continue to
command a huge following among college-educated lesbians in Taiwan,
for she gave beautiful and soulful expression to the experiences of
that community." —Tze-Lan D. Sang, Professor of Chinese literature
and media studies, Michigan State University
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