With his novels Mysterious Train (2003) and The School of Water-Ghosts and the Otter Who Lost His Mother (2005), Kan Yao-ming earned the recognition for his status as an outstanding writer in Taiwan, and established the reputation as a pioneer in new Taiwan nativist literature and a distinctive writer of Hakka literature in Taiwan. The style of Kan's early works changes a lot, and the works often contain fantastic elements from folklore, fables and fairy tales. With a mixed use of Mandarin, Japanese, Hakka, and other Taiwanese dialects, his works show characteristics of experiment and linguistic hybridity in Taiwan. After 2009, Kan started to integrate into his novels historical memories, ethnical, national identities, and concern for the local, with an attempt to rethink the history of Taiwan from a writer's perspective. Killing the Ghost narrates the oscillating and perplexed postcolonial identity of Taiwan people during the period between late Japanese colonization and early Kuomintang rule after the Second World War. By depicting the declination of Taiwan's forestry, The Pangcah Girl (2015) gives a look of the crisis and predicament in the economic transition in 70s Taiwan. Kan expresses his serious concerns about history and politics in the fantastic, pure and nostalgic forest he built in the novel.
- Zhan Min-xu, August 21, 2015.
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