THE BOY FROM CLEARWATER: VOLUME 1

by Yu Pei-Yun,

illustrated

by Zhou Jian-Xin, translated by Lin King

For fans of Persepolis comes an incredible true story and a graphic novel that lays bare the history of Taiwan.

Inthe 1930s, Tsai Kun-Lin enjoys a carefree childhood despite the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. As war emerges, Tsai’s memories shift to military parades, air raids, and watching others face conscription into the army. After the war, the book-loving teenager believes he is finally stepping towards a comfortable future, but little does he know, a dark cloud awaits him ahead. In his second year at Taichung First High School, Tsai attends a book club and is consequently arrested on taking part in an “illegal” assembly. He is sentenced to prison, deprived of civil rights, and sent to Green Island for “reformation.”

Lasting until his release in 1960, Tsai, a victim of the White Terror era, spent ten years of his youth in prison on a false charge —but he is ready to embrace freedom.

YU PEI-YUN graduated from the National Taiwan University and holds a doctoral degree in Human Science from Ochanomizu University, Japan. Currently teaching at the Graduate Institute of Children’s Literature at National Taitung University, she is devoted to the studies of Children’s Literature and Culture.

ZHOU JIAN-XIN holds a master’s degree from the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Children’s Literature at National Taitung University.

LIN KING is a writer and translator from Taipei, Taiwan. Her work has appeared in publications including Boston Review, Joyland, Asymptote, and Columbia Journal, and has won the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She translates from Mandarin Chinese and Japanese to English, and her translation of Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue is forthcoming from Graywolf Press.