Taipei: A book by Taiwanese author Chang Chuan-fen about Taiwan's oldest man on death row and remnants of the country's authoritarian past has been chosen for translation by a U.S.-based program. Seattle-based translator Lya Shaffer is set to translate Chang's 2022 book "Liumang Wang Xin-fu" as part of the American Literary Translators Association's 2025 Emerging Translator Mentorship Program.
According to Focus Taiwan, the book focuses on the life of Wang Xin-fu, who was sentenced to death in 2008 for being present with the murderer and an accomplice at a karaoke bar where two police officers were killed in 1990, despite insufficient evidence linking him to the shootings. Wang's appeal was denied, and in 2011, Taiwan's Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.
Chang's book details Wang's experiences, including being labeled a "liumang" or "hooligan" under the martial law of late President Chiang Kai-shek's administration. This label, Chang suggests, may have played a role in his death sentence and his eventual flight to China.
Taiwan's Control Yuan and various human rights organizations have advocated for a retrial, believing Wang's case to be a miscarriage of justice. Shaffer's ALTA page describes Chang's work as a significant critique of authoritarian injustice, deserving global attention.
Shaffer will be mentored by Taiwanese-American translator Lin King in the program. King gained recognition in Taiwan in November 2024 after winning the United States National Book Award for her translation of Yang Shuangzi's novel Taiwan Travelogue.
The Taiwan Academy, under the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, co-organizes the ALTA mentorship program. The works by Shaffer and King will be showcased at the annual ALTA Conference in early November in Tucson, Arizona.