Useless in my hometown

Ma Ni Ni Wei's Debut Novel
Awarded the Taipei Grand Prize for Literature

The book takes the author's hometown as its subject, yet she writes, "I don't have a hometown myself, no place I particularly long to return to. This is nothing unusual; many people of my generation left and never came back."

Ma Ni Ni Wei's debut novel uses a blend of reality and fiction to tell the story of a family that immigrated to Malaysia in the last century. She describes her Malaysian hometown as "useless."

"My Hometown is Useless" opens by stating, "There's nothing much to write about my parents." It begins with a temple fire, telling the stories of Chinese immigrants to Malaysia who fished, grew vegetables, and ran small shops to make a living. This includes the fate of "my grandfather" and his fourteen siblings: some became nurses in Singapore, some elementary school teachers, some married temple caretakers, some bought children because they couldn't conceive, there's Auntie Ah Jiao who became mentally impaired after a high fever and lost her husband, and Senior Sister Qing who came to Taiwan to study art, returned home to have children, and later committed suicide. And, of course, there's the mother who brought warmth and lived a quiet, dutiful life.

Through Ma Ni Ni Wei's words, these immigrants in the story are transformed into a group of "primitive beings," constantly facing the omnipresent threats of death, illness, and madness. "Uselessness," paradoxically, becomes the blessing of an ordinary life.

She writes: "But these things have taken root and sprouted within me. Only I am interested in these people, interested in these events." For this, she remembers them through stories and praises them through poetry.

Acclaimed Recommendations

Li Tung-Hao, Fang Hui-Chen, Chong Keat Aun, Chen Po-Ching, Chang Kuei-Hsing, Chang Chieh-Ping, Liu Ka-Shiang, Lu Yu-Chia, Sun Zi-Ping

"Knife-like writing, precise, incisive, and full of tension."
＿＿＿Comment by Liu Ka-Shiang, Chairman of the Judging Panel for the 24th Taipei Literary Grant

About the Author

Ma Ni Ni Wei
 
A Malaysian Chinese who has been "barely surviving" in Taipei for over twenty years. She studied fine art but developed an aversion to the fine art department. She returned to creative writing in her thirties. Her works include essays, poetry, and picture books, with over ten titles such as: "Love Animals Well in This Life," "Years Later I Remember Taipei," "Shine with Your Impurities," "I Was Not Born to Be a Mother," "Once a Palang Knife, Now Scrap Metal," "Ma Ruo Ni," "My Fine Art Teenager," "Malaysian Ghost Manual," and others.