【2021 春季講座 TCLRA SPRING LECTURE】2021 TCLRA Spring Lecture: “How Historical Materials can be Integrated and Transformed into Graphic Novels: Son of Formosa as an Example”

An Academic and Creative Sharing of Multi-media Storytelling—

2021 TCLRA Spring Lecture: “How Historical Materials can be Integrated and Transformed into Graphic Novels: Son of Formosa as an Example”

On 17^th April 2021, Department of English, along with Taiwan Children’s Literature Research Association (TCLRA), hosted the 2021 TCLRA Spring Lecture. The focus of the lecture was to explore how to translate one’s life story into a graphic novel, i.e., to tell one’s biography with multi-media. The invited speakers, associate professor Pei-yun Yu from The Graduate Institute of Children’s Literature at National Taitung University and graphic artist Jian-xin Zhou, have collaborated on the developing graphic novel series Son of Formosa, focusing on Mr. Kun-lin Tsai’s life story, which is also the epitome of the post-war development of Taiwanese society. Prof. Yu has worked upon the textual narrative, cross-examining and correlating Mr. Tsai’s personal experiences and major historical events in Taiwan. Based on Prof. Yu’s script, Mr. Zhou has done historical survey, used varied colors and artistic techniques, and exercised personal imagination and interpretation to reconstruct and restore personal and historical scenarios, inviting readers to travel through time to relive the early post-war period of Taiwanese society. Both speakers are still working the coda, the fourth book, of this series. Most audience enjoyed learning this innovative way of narrating one’s biography and raised many questions such as how much creative license one is allowed in reshaping one’s life story and how the two speakers handle multi-lingual data and representation in their novels. Among the audience, one faculty member from Japanese Department is the Japanese translator of the series. The lecture ended with further discussion of other related issues such as how to make a very local, that is, Taiwanese, story appeal to a wider readership.