As Taiwan continues to reclaim its suppressed past, there’s been a proliferation of documentaries on notable writers — in this case the legendary author and critic Yeh Shi-tao (葉石濤) — in a bid to bring them back to the national consciousness, especially among young people.
Born in Tainan in 1925, Yeh showed his genius from a young age, publishing his first novel as a teenager. Things went south for him after World War II; as a member of the “translingual generation” he was forced to compose in an unfamiliar language — Mandarin. Additionally, he was thrown in jail for three