Occupation Author, Scholar Nationality Taiwanese | Name Wu Mingyi Role Author | |
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Notable works The Man with Compound Eyes (2011) Books The Man with the Compound Eyes, Hu ye and other short stories | ||
Wu Ming-Yi (born June 20, 1971) is a multidisciplinary Taiwanese artist, author, academic and environmental activist. In Chinese, he is especially well known for his non-fiction books on butterflies, The Book of Lost Butterflies (2000) and The Dao of Butterflies (2003), which he also designed and illustrated. His ecological parable The Man with Compound Eyes (2011) was published in English August 29, 2013 by Harvill Secker and will be published by Vintage Pantheon in North America in spring, 2014. This novel, which tells the story of a young Pacific islander, Atelie (Atile'i in the English translation), from the fictitious island of Wayo Wayo (suggesting Bora Bora) who arrives on the East Coast of Taiwan when the 'trash vortex', a floating mountain of trash which has formed out of the Great Pacific Trash Vortex, collides with the island, has been described as "a masterpiece of environmental literature about an apocalyptic aboriginal encounter with modernity...Trash, resource shortages, and the destruction of Taiwan's coastline as a result of the pursuit of unenlightened self-interest are unremarkable raw materials, but [Wu Mingyi] mashes them into art."
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Biography
Wu was born in 1971 in Taoyuan, Taiwan (Republic of China) (now Taoyuan District, Taoyuan). He holds a BA in marketing from Fu-Jen Catholic University and a PhD in Chinese Literature from National Central University. In 2000 he began teaching literature and creative writing at Dong Hwa University.
Novels
Essay Collections
Literary Theory
