Cambria Press Publication Review: Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond
Congratulations to Professor Chia-rong Wu on the excellent review of his book, Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond, in the journal Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC).
The review praises the book, noting that it is “a most welcome addition to the burgeoning field of Sinophone studies” and “makes important contributions to the field.” It further states that:
Through a meticulous delineation of the literary aesthetic trajectory, reformulation, and deformation of the zhiguai genre from traditional Chinese culture to modern and contemporary Sinophone Taiwan, Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond succeeds in advancing the field of Sinophone studies in several critical directions. First, it demonstrates the spectral and supernatural genre’s stylistic diversification into the terrains of magical realism, nativism, and translocalism. Second, it reveals the complex histories and narratives of migration, displacement, and global diasporas in both contextual and textual literary production. Furthermore, the emphasis on the literary form and expressive potential of the supernatural and the strange reconfirms the critical value of literature itself, which Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has called the value of ‘unverifiability.’ Finally, engaging with voices and figures that dwell in the shadows of mainstream historicism, nationalist historiography, China-centrism, and patriarchal violence, the book gestures alternatively toward the marginal, the feminist, the racially marked, and the queer. In so doing, Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond charts a new direction at the intersections of Sinophone studies, Chinese literary studies, Taiwan studies, and gender studies.
Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series headed by Victor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania).