Below is a transcript of her film “A Carnival of Ghosts,” adapted from the title story of Qiu’s earlier collection, along with some film-stills. Her final novel, an experimental memoir written on the eve of her death, titled Last Words from Montmartre (translated to English by Ari Larissa Heinrich and published by New York Review Books in 2014), earned Qiu recognition in broader literary circles as the quintessential “author’s author” and a writer of exceptional genius.Īlthough a two-volume set of Qiu Miaojin’s diaries was published posthumously in 2007, it was only recently that some of her archival student films were uncovered.

Her novel Notes of a Crocodile (translated to English by Bonnie Huie and published by New York Review Books in 2017) was awarded the China Times Award for Literature in 1995, and became a queer cult classic for its lesbian themes and vocabulary. A collection of Qiu’s previously serialized short fiction called A Carnival of Ghosts (referred to elsewhere also as The Revelries of Ghosts) came out in 1991. Qiu Miaojin (1969-1995) was a Taiwanese novelist who ended her life in Paris, at the age of 26. “A Carnival of Ghosts: A Film Transcript of a Student Film by Qiu Miaojin.”

In the first of its kind for the HKRB, Carolyn Lau curates a special issue on the pioneer of Taiwanese queer literature, Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津).Īri Larissa Heinrich contributes an English translation of Qiu Miaojin’s archival student film, which was based on the author’s award-winning story “A Carnival of Ghosts”.

Qiu miaojin