Translator Bonnie Huie appears in conversation with poet, essayist, and novelist Eileen Myles, whose books include Chelsea Girls, Inferno, Cool For You, and most recently, I Must Be Living Twice, a gathering of new and selected poems spanning more than four decades. “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.” Qiu Miaojin is the author of Last Words from Montmartre, published posthumously after her death at twenty-six, and a hugely influential figure in both Taiwanese and international queer and experimental writing scenes. “Despite a short life, Qiu Miaojin has left behind a notable legacy in contemporary Chinese literature,” writes Li-hua Ying. 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. Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Qiu Miaojin’s 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.
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