WULOLIFE
"Crocodile Notes" Author: Qiu Miaojin Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press
"Crocodile Notes" Author: Qiu Miaojin Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press
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Introduction · · · · · ·
Qiu Miaojin's debut novel
The gay love story that shocked the whole of Taiwan
A literary classic that opened an era
Recommended by Jiang Xun, Luo Yijun and Chen Xue
On the edge of the life zone, the entanglement of homosexual desire, in the cold and helpless wilderness of life, listen to Qiu Miaojin - the sincere confession of a lonely crocodile, a violent and passionate song of desperate love...
Should we face this homosexuality that seems to be innate, unchosen and unchangeable, bravely or struggle? How difficult is it to face the love deep in your heart and the sorrow that has nowhere to go and no one understands? Even the most desperate and painful stories will bloom with surprising warmth and beauty at the most brilliant moment of life...
“No matter how much pain and suffering I have to endure, I will still say that love is immortal.”
"Crocodile Notes" is the most important novel completed by Qiu Miaojin, and it is also a true portrayal of the confused and distressed mental journey of Taiwanese college students in the late 20th century.
The book is divided into eight chapters, most of which are set against the backdrop of college life, describing the emotional lives and mental journeys of seven male and female protagonists who are homosexual or bisexual. Through liberated sexual and gender perspectives, it depicts the pain and gains that the college students’ brand-new spiritual world and unrecognized emotional experiences brought to each other’s growth process. Other chapters are composed of a monologue by an anthropomorphic crocodile, forming an independent fable outside the main plot, satirizing and alluding to the lonely and oppressed fate of “crocodiles/sexual deviants” in human society. These interweaving narrative clues use a polyphonic double-voice structure to pull out the psychological and political aspects of the same theme.
I am now 45 years old, and it has been 20 years since I met Qiu Miaojin, or when we were so young (but with shining eyes and horns on our heads), argued several times but in a friendly way, standing on tiptoes to imagine what kind of novels we could and "should" write. I still meet lesbians who are five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years younger than me at different times, and they still talk to me devoutly about Qiu Miaojin... I feel that she has become the "lesbian republic" of Taiwanese lesbians, a portrait on some secret time currency. - Luo Yijun
Her works were praised, quoted, discussed, and studied. Her life, deeds, and even the novels, writers, and film directors she read and admired, all became a mountain that could be looked up to in the lesbian world, and became an object of emulation and reference for that generation of literary and artistic youth. Some people even said directly, "Qiu Miaojin is my god."
——Chen Xue
About the Author
A legend that shook Taiwan, a genius who created with his life
He emerged with fierce talent, and bid farewell to the world resolutely and tragically.
The most brilliant and legendary lesbian writer in Taiwan's literary world at the end of the 20th century
Qiu Miaojin was born in Changhua, Taiwan in 1969. He graduated from National Taiwan University in 1991. In 1992, he went to France to study psychology at the University of Paris VIII. In June 1995, he committed suicide in Paris at the age of 26. Qiu Miaojin's multifaceted talents began to fully manifest in college. He won the Taiwan Central Daily News Short Story Literature Award, the United Literature Novella Newcomer Award, etc., and shot a 30-minute 16-centimeter film "Ghost Carnival".
Qiu Miaojin's sudden death caused a great shock in the Taiwanese literary world, and immediately created a trend. In October of the same year, her first novel "Crocodile Notes" won the Times Literary Award Recommendation Award. The words "Lazi" and "Crocodile" in the book also became the self-names used by the Taiwanese lesbian community. The following year, her posthumous work "Montmartre Last Letter" was compiled and published by a friend, which caused a sensation throughout Taiwan and became a classic that almost everyone in the Taiwanese lesbian community must read.
His major literary works include "Carnival of Ghosts", "Notes of the Crocodile", "La Testament de Montmartre", etc.
