Chimera Literary Salon| From The Picture of Dorian Gray to Du Lian Kui—Reading a Timeless Classic

‍Event Content

Da-Hong Wang, Taiwan’s first-generation postwar architect, spent a decade transposing Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray from Victorian London to Taipei in the 1960s and 1970s, rewriting it as Du Lian-Kui for his own era. Through this temporal displacement, Wang not only presents a universal allegory of human nature but also embeds his aesthetic reflections and observations of Taipei within the novel’s narrative. In 2021, this work was published through a collaborative effort between the Winsing Arts Foundation and the Society for Research and Preservation of Wang Da-hong's Architecture.

For this lecture series, the Foundation specially invited Chia-Hsien Yang (writer and Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Literature, National Tsing Hua University) to curate the program. Analyzing from a literary perspective, she introduces Du Lian-Kui to contemporary Taiwan and discusses the significance of reading classic works for modern readers. Simultaneously, by examining Wang’s reflections on his era revealed in the work, she guides participants to “approach Da-Hong Wang” from perspectives beyond architecture.

The series opens with a dialogue between Chia-Hsien Yang (writer and Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Literature, National Tsing Hua University) and Wei-Hsiung Chan (cultural sociologist).

Through classic literature, readers can glimpse another world and, by understanding its elements, reflect on their own reality. As Taiwanese society increasingly values individualized experiences, we hope that after reading Du Lian-Kui, readers will gain a fresh perspective on life, learn to open their senses, and perceive the world through their bodies.