Nonsense

A Fable Woven from Language, Gender, and Nation
"Linguistic Sci-Fi" Etched with Layers of Identity Rifts


Tetsuya Terao (Writer) | Yu-Hsun Chu (Writer) | Wen-Chin Ho (Writer) | Wan-Shun Ho (Chair Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tunghai University) | Yi-Feng Kao (Novelist) | Pei-Chen Chen (Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature, NCCU) | Wei-Ge Tong (Writer) ——Recommended


He always understood the big picture of the nation through the small matters of gender.
No, how can matters of gender be small?

If you are silent, accept, and get used to something, you won't feel its existence.
If you feel that language, gender, and ethnicity are omnipresent, it means you have been excluded.

On a future island, the great power across the strait abandoned its sovereignty threats over the island. After independence, the island fractured, leading to a divided and opposing "Island Nation" in the south and "Flower Nation" in the north. For national defense and security, the Island Nation implemented a language purification policy: abolishing ideographic characters and fully adopting Romanization, making English and the island's native language co-official languages. When the state attempts to reshape the nation with a single standard for the sake of security, whose language is silenced?

He, a professional translator, wears a hearing aid and has always felt out of place, constantly thinking of his ex-wife, whom he adored yet who resented him; a language teacher dedicated to revitalizing his mother tongue, yet forced to teach it in English, watching his ideals slowly die amidst linguistic inaccuracies; he, who has spent his life trying to correct his accent and gender expression to appear strong and masculine, discovers on a journey to his roots that he is not of the pure bloodline he once believed; he never thought he would be with a Han person, she never thought she would be with a trans man, and they both took a step they never imagined...

"Gibberish" starts with language, constructing a future vision of an island, interwoven with gender identity, class, ethnicity, and generational differences. These differences shape the diverse facets of the island, providing vitality but also being the source of its people's complex identities. The novel unfolds a future scroll that reflects our reality. The island in "Gibberish" is not the real Taiwan; it's a country that mirrors Taiwan, while Taiwan itself is a fictional creation by the characters in the novel, used to discuss and convey their issues. Taking a meta-fictional approach, "Gibberish" slowly uncovers the unresolved identity dilemmas we have faced for many years, each one familiar yet difficult to address. The author's writing clashes with various identities, prompting direct reflection on the core problems of our real society.

The novel depicts situations where various differences and conflicts are pushed to their extremes, hoping that the version of extreme confrontation within the novel will not appear in our reality. Hopefully, as we read the novel, we will feel grateful that we have chosen a better, more inclusive version.

Praise and Recommendations

"Gibberish" is Qin Zuo's first collection of short stories. Before this, his creations were mainly essays and modern poetry. This new book by a new author made me forget the basic technical details, and I found myself pondering it back and forth like an "opponent." It's truly an extraordinary debut, astonishing. Not to mention, Qin Zuo immediately moved away from lyrical, self-indulgent, and simplistic uses of life experience (not that life experience isn't evident, but he doesn't dwell in a "simple" state), challenging high-density themes like "linguistic sci-fi," gender, and nation. Compared to other new authors, or even within the broader literary fiction scene, his ambition is extremely rare. ——Yu-Hsun Chu (Writer)

As a series of interconnected short stories, the relationships between the characters in "Gibberish" run through almost every independent short story. The author uses a large amount of linguistic knowledge, and every character in this book is "learning to speak" and "learning to listen." Qin Zuo skillfully uses novelistic techniques to make controversial and complex issues easy to understand. He also openly acknowledges his past or present confusion in the book, and his temporary lack of answers on certain issues is the most tender response Qin Zuo can offer at this moment. I recommend "Gibberish" to anyone who is also struggling and repeatedly pondering within the intricate web of issues.
——Wen-Chin Ho (Writer)

"Gibberish" has a sense of experimentation similar to Li Kotomi's work, but it also reflects the identity explorations of a new generation.——Pei-Chen Chen (Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature, NCCU)

Author's Bio

Qin Zuo

Born in Pingtung, graduated from National Chengchi University with a major in Spanish in the Department of European Languages and Literature, and a minor in Chinese Literature. He also attended the Graduate Institute of Linguistics at NCCU. He served as a consultant for Changlang Poetry Society and is currently a member of the Imaginary Friends Writing Group. He focuses on issues related to language and identity, gender equality, and LGBTQ+. He loves the ocean, light and shadow, silence, reading and writing, and traveling. He once circumnavigated the globe from the Southern Hemisphere by boat with an NGO.

He has received awards such as the Ministry of Culture Youth Creation Award, the National Culture and Arts Foundation Literary Creation Grant, the Global Chinese Youth Literature Award, the Ministry of Education Arts and Literature Creation Award, the TSMC Youth Student Literature Award, the NCCU Daonan Literature Award, the Taichung Literature Award, and the Pingtung Literature Award. He is the author of the essay collection "Stranded in the Forest" and co-authored "100 Literary Keywords: A Passcode Guide for Beginners."