A TKU alumnus, Yi Ge-yan, who graduated from the Graduate Program, Department of Chinese in 2005, is the only Taiwanese nominee for Frank O’ Connor International Short Award, with her book, People In The Jar. He will compete with over thirty novelists for the prize. The lists of runoff will be announced in July and the winner will be announced in September.

Chain-tsz Zheng, with the penname “Egoyan,” is a bright new literary star of Taiwan. Although he is only 30, he has won many prizes. He won the Prize of Young Novelist of Unitas Literature in 2001, and published his first short story collection (People In The Jar) in 2004. He was the only Taiwanese nominee for The Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007, with her work “Fleeting Light.” He is selected as one of 2008 top 10 potential figures of Taiwan by CAN.

Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award is held once two years. The winner in 2006 is the famous Japanese novelist, Murakami Haruki. British and American novelists occupy most of the nominated positions this year, including the Irish novelist, Anne Enright, who won 2007 Man Booker Prize, and Jhumpa Lahiri, who won Pulitzer prize for her “Homonymy,” and the winner of 1993 Booker McConnell Prize for Fiction, Roddy Doyle.

Zheng’s first short story collection (People In The Jar) was published in 2004,. He indicates that that 70％ of the eleven short stories in the collection were composed in the library of TKU. In the title story “People in the Jar,” Zheng uses the jar as a metaphor for the secret of life. As someone is lovelorn, she would be sad at once. However, everything would pass away after a period of time. This is possibly the destined progress of life. As a professional writer, he said “It is very stressful to produce works regularly.” He suggests to his school sisters and brothers who are fond of literature that it is not necessary to be a professional writer; it will be joyful to write for fun. ( ~Maggie Wu )