Remains of Life

"On October 27, 1930 during an annual sports meet held at Musha Elementary School on an aboriginal reservation deep in the mountains of Taiwan there occurred a bloody uprising unlike anything Japan had ever witnessed in its colonial history. Before noon the Atayal tribe had summarily slain one hundred and thirty-four Japanese in a headhunting ritual that shook the very foundations of Japan's colonial empire. The Japanese responded to what would later become known as the "Musha Incident" with a militia of three thousand, heavy artillery, airplanes, and internationally banned poisonous gas. The Atayal of Musha were brought to the brink of genocide. Nearly seventy years later, Chen Guocheng, a writer best known by his poetic penname Wu He, or "Dancing Crane," traveled to Musha to investigate the long forgotten Musha Incident and search for the "remains of life" - the survivors of the incident and their descendants. Exploring the impetus behind this disturbing historical event and questioning its legitimacy and accuracy, Wu He walks a tightrope between the primitive and the civilized, beauty and violence, fact and fiction. The result is Remains of Life, a powerful and disturbing literary voyage into perhaps the darkest chapter of Taiwan's colonial history. This one-of-a-kind work is a milestone in Chinese literature and marks the arrival of a major literary voice in the Chinese speaking world. Upon its publication in Taiwan, the novel was awarded virtually every major national literary award including the Taipei Creative Writing Award for Literature, The China Times' Ten Best Books of the Year Award, The United Daily Readers' Choice Award, Ming Pao's Ten Best Books of the Year Award, and the Kingstone Award for Most Influential Book of the Year" -