Writing alum Kevin Wang '22 published his translation of Terao Tetsuya's Spent Bullets with HarperVia on October 14, 2024.
The short novel collection follows a coterie of strivers centered around Jie-Heng, a highly educated engineer who has risen through the ranks of Taiwan's techno-meritocracy to achieve everything but a sense of himself. After an irreparable choice, those closest to Jie-Heng search for the meaning of his brief, brilliant life.
"A searing look at our time and culture, Terao Tetsuya exposes the absurdity of striving: to make money, to be a better person, to be someone you're not. With cool, calculating precision, he illuminates the promise and peril of gifted young people who patiently bear the burdens of their fate," said the publisher.
Tetsuya has lived a life that mirrors those of his protagonists, achieving a degree in information engineering at National Taiwan University and working for eight years at Google. He quit to pursue writing full-time and has quickly become one of Taiwan's most popular and acclaimed writers.
A book launch at the downtown Accent Sisters 重音社 bookstore will feature Wang in conversation with Associate Professor of Writing Anelise Chen on October 24 from 7–9 PM. Preorders are available from HarperCollins.
Kevin Wang 王可 is a writer and educator from Kaifeng, China. His translations of Terao Tetsuya, Chen Bo-Ching, Mu Tang, Shuang Xuetao, Leung-She Kwan, and Du Fu have been published in Gulf Coast, Books From Taiwan, Circumference, The Margins, and Asymptote. His co-translation of Chi Ta-wei’s triumph of queer theory, History of Tongzhi Literature, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.
