Qiu Miaojin

Qiu Miaojin (Chinese: 邱妙津; May 29, 1969 - June 25, 1995) was a Taiwanese novelist. Her unapologetically lesbian^[1] sensibility has had a profound and lasting influence on queer literature in Taiwan.

Originally from Changhua County in western Taiwan, she attended the prestigious Taipei First Girls' High School and National Taiwan University, where she graduated with a major in psychology. She worked as a counselor and later as a reporter at the weekly magazine The Journalist. In 1994 she moved to Paris, where she pursued graduate studies in clinical psychology and feminism at University of Paris VIII.

Her death was a suicide. Although there has been a great deal of speculation as to the exact cause of death, most accounts suggest that she stabbed herself with a kitchen knife.

Her best-known work is Notes of a Crocodile, for which she was awarded the China Times Literature Award in 1995. A two-volume set of her diaries was published posthumously in 2007.

Luo Yijun's book Forgetting Sorrow (遣悲懷) was written in her memory.

Bibliography

Novels

• Notes of a Crocodile (1994)
• Letters from Montmartre (1996) - excerpt translated by Howard Goldblatt. In J. Lau and H. Goldblatt (Ed. & Trans.), The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0824826529

Short Stories

• "Platonic Hair" (1990) - translated by Fran Martin. In F. Martin (Ed. & Trans.), Angelwings: Contemporary Queer Fiction from Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0231138413

References

1. ^ Sang, Tze-Lan D (2003), The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China, University of Chicago Press, p. 159, ISBN 0226734803